ABSTRACT
In the early years of Stanford University, sociologist Edward A. Ross's activities in the Democratic Party incurred the wrath of Jane Lothrop Stanford, the founder's widow, sole trustee, and mistress of the endowment. The publicity surrounding the Ross Affair marks a tipping point in attitudes toward the role and rights of faculty in the governance and operations of America's new and burgeoning universities. Haberler's study underlines the paramount purpose of professionalization in the founding and early years of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). Indeed, the founders compared their initiative to the American Medical Association and the American Bar Association. An initial challenge for the AAUP was harmonizing diverse faculty understanding of concepts like academic freedom. The processes by which faculty careers, academic freedom, and the administration of student affairs became institutionalized represent central features of the twentieth-century evolution of American higher education.
