Most higher education programs nationally teach a required course on the history of higher education in the United States. The team that developed this website, including historians, higher education faculty, and an interdisciplinary group of undergraduate and graduate students, worked to expand the number of freely available resources to support the teaching and learning of this history.
This Open Educational Resource (OER) provides three main sections:
- Secondary Sources: Curated (and constantly expanding) list of resources organized by type (articles, books, book chapters, digital resources)
- Archives: Database of over 700 institutional digital archives representing institutions nationally, including public and private; two-year, four-year, and graduate; minority serving institutions (MSIs); predominantly white institutions (PWIs); religious and secular universities, women’s colleges, and technical colleges. Digitized primary sources include college yearbooks, newspapers, oral histories, photographs, maps, letters, and financial and institutional records.
- Teaching Resources: Coming soon.
This work was supported in part with funding from 4-VA and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Thank you to the participants and project scholars at the NEH 2024 Unpacking the History of Higher Education Summer Institute who contributed resources and feedback.
History of Higher Education OER Team:
- Kelly Schrum, Professor, George Mason University
- Nate Sleeter, Director of Educational Projects, Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University
- Chase Catalano, Associate Professor, Virginia Tech
- Sophia Abbot, Faculty Development Specialist, University of Rhode Island
- Amanda Corso, PhD student, George Mason University
- Greg Goodman, Web Editor, George Mason University
- Sodaba Azamy (BA, 2023), George Mason University
- Kelly Tcheo (BS 2023), George Mason University
- Madeleine Duval, undergraduate, George Mason University