Results by title

3 books match the query 'Academe'

cover of The Electric Edge of Academe: The Saga of Lucien L. Nunn and Deep Springs College

The Electric Edge of Academe

The Saga of Lucien L. Nunn and Deep Springs College

L. Jackson Newell

University of Utah Press, 2015

Here is a look at the life and legacy of an irrepressible innovator. Pushing against both social convention and technological boundaries, L.L. Nunn left enduring marks on economic and social history, labor development, and, educational reform. The Electric Edge of Academe is a bold portrayal of this progressive-era hydroelectric power magnate who, driven by a dynamic conscience, also became a force for social change and educational experimentation.

In 1891, Nunn, working with Tesla and Westinghouse, pioneered the world’s first commercial production of high-tension alternating current (AC) for long-distance transmission—something Thomas Edison deemed dangerous and irresponsible. After creating the Telluride Power Company, Nunn constructed the state-of-the-art Olmsted Power Plant in Provo Canyon and the Ontario Power Works at Niagara Falls. To support this new technology, he developed an imaginative model of industrial training that became so compelling that he ultimately abandoned his entrepreneurial career to devote his wealth and talents to experimenting with a new model of liberal education. In 1917, Nunn founded Deep Springs College in eastern California. The school remains one of the most daring, progressive, and selective institutions of higher learning in America. Newell examines how Nunn’s radical educational ideas have survived internal and external challenges for nearly a century and explores their relevance today. 


[more]
cover of Women in Academe: Progress and Prospects

Women in Academe

Progress and Prospects

Mariam K. Chamberlain

Russell Sage Foundation, 1988

The role of women in higher education, as in many other settings, has undergone dramatic changes during the past two decades. This significant period of progress and transition is definitively assessed in the landmark volume, Women in Academe. Crowded out by returning veterans and pressed by social expectations to marry early and raise children, women in the 1940s and 1950s lost many of the educational gains they had made in previous decades. In the 1960s women began to catch up, and by the 1970s women were taking rapid strides in academic life. As documented in this comprehensive study, the combined impact of the women's movement and increased legislative attention to issues of equality enabled women to make significant advances as students and, to a lesser extent, in teaching and academic administration. Women in Academe traces the phenomenal growth of women's studies programs, the notable gains of women in non-traditional fields, the emergence of campus women's centers and research institutes, and the increasing presence of minority and re-entry women. Also examined are the uncertain future of women's colleges and the disappointingly slow movement of women into faculty and administrative positions. This authoritative volume provides more current and extensive data on its subject than any other study now available. Clearly and objectively, it tells an impressive story of progress achieved—and of important work still to be done.
[more]
cover of Women of Academe: Outsiders in the Sacred Grove

Women of Academe

Outsiders in the Sacred Grove

Nadya Aisenberg

University of Massachusetts Press, 1988

Drawing on more than sixty interviews, this book examines women's struggle to gain authority in the academic profession and to use that authority to change conventional practices. The authors argue that as women rise in academe, they are stymied at a certain level by the remaining force of the old norms which in the past barred women from professional life altogether. These norms decreed a sharp division between public and private realms, assigning men to public duties, women to private, men to intellectual pursuits, women to emotional and relational ones.

Although the strict division of roles is eroding, prejudices about women's "lesser" intellectual power still operate, subtly but effectively, through a two-tiered system of responsibility. The top tier exercises the real authority and consists almost exclusively of men. The bottom tier carries out supportive functions and consists of some men and nearly all the profession's women, who also carry the major burden of private and familial responsibilities.

Making excellent use of interviews, the authors explore in vivid detail how this two-tiered system works and the variety of ways in which academic women have responded to "the rules of the game."
[more]