Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines who participated in what ways at which US institutions of higher education over time. It focuses on the middle and the outside, addressing the 1800s and focusing on midwestern colleges and universities with discussion of southern and western institutions of higher education. The book considers the theme of contesting the centrality of elite institutions. It also examines Progressivism, a movement of the late 1800s and early 1900s and also focuses on the research university, particularly from the late 1940s to the early 2000s. The book addresses an immeasurably complex problem for historians, the role of theory. It outlines the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Vietnam conflict, and the war on terror to raise key issues about how institutions of higher education and three of their constituencies—administrators, faculty members, and students—respond to war.