History Of University Research Articles

The History of Austrian Students Between Academic Status and Socio-Political Activity 1848-1938

The development of a scholarly and objective historiography of students in the Habsburg monarchy and the First Austrian Republic only began at the end of the twentieth century. Several factors explain why it was only after gaining a certain temporal and emotional distance that historians were able to write a more scientifically objective history of universities and students. It was not until the middle of the 19th century that students, who were strictly controlled by the state and the Catholic Church until 1859, were able to emerge as an independent group of actors. The multitude of associations founded according to the ideal model of the German fraternities were subject to a highly ideological polarisation process. This also extends to the professoriate of the university, which was belatedly established as an autonomous institution. Therefore, the history and humanities departments in particular became the forerunners of a nationalist antisemitic ideology rather than rationally scientific critical instances. The politics of exclusion continued uninterruptedly into the First Republic and ultimately led to the loss of university autonomy and the students’ right of free association after Austria became part of the National Socialist German Reich in 1938.

Europe’s Forgotten Students? The Historiography of 19th and early 20th century Students in France

Historians’ interest in university history of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has been more limited in the case of France than for other countries. This interest has been even weaker with regard to students, a situation that only began to change at the beginning of the twenty-first century. However, pioneering work could have launched a research dynamic from the 1980s onwards, as the first part of this article shows and explains. In its second part, this paper analyzes the main themes addressed by the historiography of students in France. After underlining some of its persistent limitations, proposals for future research will be made.

Государственная политика в области подготовки педагогических кадров в СССР в послевоенные годы

The changes that took place in the last quarter of the 20th century in the political, economic and cultural life of Russia necessitated the modernization of the modern educational system. In this regard, an appeal to the experience of the past seems very relevant. The author considers main directions and tasks of the state policy in the field of teachers training in the post-war period as an integral part of the five-year plans for the development of the national economy of the country. The main sources of research are the documents of the State Archive of the Republic of Buryatia. Published sources on the history of school education in Buryatia and the history of the Buryat-Mongolian State University also played a great role in revealing the topic. Using the example of Buryatia the author establishes that pedagogical education, which is in dire need of teachers and schools, developed in accordance with all state guidelines. The development and strengthening of the material and technical base, the high level of scientific and pedagogical qualifications of the teaching staff of the Buryat-Mongolian State Pedagogical Institute, its constant interaction and cooperation with public education authorities were important conditions for the Institute to fulfill its main task – the quality training of teachers for general education schools in Buryatia.

Editorial Policy

Editorial Policy

Introduction On the Histories and Futures of Black New England Studies

Introduction On the Histories and Futures of Black New England Studies

The Presence and Roles of University Museums in Indonesia

The study of museums in almost all leading universities in Indonesia continues to develop from time to time. This research aims to explore the arguments of the campus community about the founding factors and their opinions about the presence and roles of university museums. The Airlangga University History and Culture Museum and the UGM Mandala Majapahit Museum are the main references for this research. A phenomenological approach with in-depth interviews, observations and relevant literature studies is used in this study. Research findings reveal that several factors of the university museums presence are due to the initiatives from university leaders. University museums serve as historical reminders, fulfill educational and research needs, and instill the identity of campus communities. In relation to the role of university museums, the campus community believes that its role is similar to libraries in supporting learning and research activities and even as community service. Considering the importance of university museums, both university leaders and the education ministry authorities are required to provide optimal support, especially by providing official regulations to support the function of museums as part of information institutions at universities.

Review of Racism on Campus: A Visual History of Prominent Virginia Colleges and Howard University

Poulson’s book comes at a critical time, where countervailing forces have emerged regarding race, history, legacy, and reparations. While the text was born from the blackface scandal faced by Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, its relevance touches on recent debates around critical race theory, book banning, the whitewashing of history, and more. While the murder of George Floyd and the surge of Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 sparked a brief period of historical reckoning nationally, there has been a backlash in the years that followed. Books are being pulled from shelves, teachers are under attack, and states are passing laws to ban the teaching of controversial topics. Poulson’s work reminds us of the value of facing the ugly truth of past racial oppression, highlighting the ubiquity of racialized imagery and the stunning ways that higher education institutions maintain and reinforce racialized hierarchies. His methodological approach allows the reader to be...

1367 Pécs/Fünfkirchen

Among the universities, which were established around the European continent gradually from the second half of the 14th century, we have to highlight the role of Pécs within the Kingdom of Hungary. The University of Pécs (studium generale) was founded in 1367 by William of Koppenbach (1361–1347), who played an essential role in the operation of the institution. The most important objective of the establishment of the university was that the diplomats of the king (contemporarily King Louis I the Great) would be able to study in the territory of Hungary instead of the Italian cities. Self-evidently, the costs of studying at a local university proved to be much lower than spending years in the well-known Italian cities such as Bologna and Padova. As an ecclesiastical seat, Pécs offered an excellent opportunity for the development of a newly-established institution. The cathedral chapter school and the library also had an important role in the foundation. In my paper I will discuss the most important details regarding the short history of the medieval university of Pécs.

Information Seeking Behavior of the Final Year Special Degree Undergraduates: A Case Study at the Department of History and Archaeology in University of Sri Jayewardenepura

Information plays an important role in human life today. It plays a vital role in the learning, teaching, and research process of university academic staff and undergraduates. This study examines the information-seeking behavior of the History and Archaeology final year special degree undergraduates of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura (USJ). The sample size of ten people was chosen from 40 people, through the purposive sampling method. Interviews were the main qualitative data instrument used to collect data. A thematic analysis technique was used to analyze the data acquired. The findings of the research were that History and Archaeology final year special degree undergraduates prefer field visits for their information requirements. The undergraduates were dependent on their lecturer's recommendations including print and electronic resources, field visits, indirect personal contacts, and libraries. In seeking information, they face several barriers such as languages issues, lack of books, the accuracy of the information and, selfish behaviors of the students. The library should acquire more copies of books on History and Archaeology subject disciplines and emphasize the need for more user awareness programs for the productive use of the library.

The Establishment of the Swinney Conservatory of Music at Central Methodist University

The Swinney Conservatory of Music at Central Methodist University in Fayette, Missouri has a long history with unique beginnings. After the Civil War, Central College (Central Methodist’s original name) grew alongside a “Female Seminary,” Howard-Payne Female College. Through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the two schools developed their own distinct musical cultures with Howard-Payne faculty developing a music curriculum, and Central students forming their own musical ensembles. When the schools merged in 1923 these two cultures united to create a conservatory of music at a time when many other American conservatories were being established. Just before the merger, Kansas City banker Edward Fletcher Swinney, who had strong family ties to the Fayette area and a history of philanthropy towards causes in Missouri education, donated $35,000 to Howard-Payne College for the construction of the conservatory building that would eventually bear his name. This article focuses on the early history of both Central College and Howard-Payne Female College, the role that music played at both schools (as a curricular and non-curricular activity) and the events leading to the formation of Central College’s music curriculum and construction of the Swinney Conservatory.

Universities in the Holy Roman Empire

The history of universities in the Holy Roman Empire has long interested scholars, and it is striking to see a raft of new publications based on doctoral dissertations addressing not only particular foundations in Central Europe but also wider research questions. They have in common an interest in the ways in which university foundations responded to the non-academic interests of late medieval society. The books all assume a degree of knowledge about the role of late medieval universities—yet they were very different from their modern counterparts. Therefore, I will set out some general characteristics of universities in the Holy Roman Empire before turning to the individual books. The pre-modern university was not an institution of tertiary education comparable to today’s universities. It was a corporately constituted association of masters and students, which was legally and economically privileged in a number of ways. From the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, universities...

The Black Athlete in West Virginia: High School and College Sports from 1900 through the End of Segregation

As of 2021, West Virginia's two Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Bluefield State and West Virginia State, are the only two in the country that have a majority white student body. Both compete today in NCAA Division II intercollegiate sports and receive much less funding than the state's largest public colleges, Marshall University and West Virginia University. Despite such demographic and financial changes in the past fifty years of West Virginia higher education, there is a rich history of African American colleges and high schools in the state, and this is especially true for African American athletic achievement. For example, the Pittsburgh Courier voted Bluefield State in 1927 and 1928 and West Virginia State in 1936 as Black-college national co-champions in football, yet neither college enjoyed much athletic-program success following desegregation. The story of how these two colleges changed from national African American football powerhouses to majority-white universities is but one analyzed within The Black Athlete in West Virginia, but it is perhaps the central, most critical theme.In what is the work's strongest chapter, the authors trace how Bluefield State and West Virginia State became the first HBCUs in the United States to join a white-colleges-only athletic conference, in their case, the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WVIAC). Both university presidents were strong believers in desegregation, and both initiated the process of joining WVIAC themselves within months of the Brown v. Board ruling. Within about six months, WVIAC college presidents met and approved both schools’ applications to join. Just like that, a West Virginia collegiate sport league was integrated, a relatively direct process that contrasts with the turmoil-filled integration stories present in chapters on Marshall and West Virginia University. But like so many civil rights stories, this simple narrative was not so cut and dry.Joining the WVIAC was celebrated among most in the two colleges, but some felt African American academic leadership betrayed Black athletes and that WVIAC membership was a step backward. First, the best African American teams from West Virginia colleges had a chance of being recognized as the national Black-college champion. This honor, typically determined by the votes of Black newspapers, was forfeited with WVIAC membership. Next, while desegregation was recognized by an overwhelming majority as a social good, the growing number of white students at each HBCU—especially Bluefield State—led to social conflict within a decade of joining the WVIAC. “While other campuses erupted in protests over the Vietnam War,” the authors write, “Bluefield's black students protested what they believed was a move by the state of West Virginia to make Bluefield State a white college and to erase its cultural heritage as a historically black college” (150). A bomb planted by an unknown perpetrator exploded in the campus physical education building in 1968. In response, the university closed its dormitories, effectively making the college a white commuter college (the surrounding county population was just 7 percent African American). Throughout all this, Bluefield State maintained a strong basketball culture largely comprised of out-of-state African American players, and social division grew.The only shortcoming in this well-researched book is that its title is a misnomer. It would have been better named “The Black Basketball and Football College Athlete in West Virginia.” Of the book's ten chapters, four are exclusively about basketball, and another four are more generally about school integration, with basketball and football serving as major cultural landmarks. Women's sports, high school sports, and other men's collegiate sports do receive an occasional mention, such as future US Olympic wrestler Bobby Douglas, but more of these examples would have provided greater depth. For instance, famed African American sportswriter Wendell Smith played baseball at West Virginia State College. Smith claimed that a white Major League scout told him that he would never be signed to a lucrative contract due to professional baseball's color barrier, at which point Smith promised himself to fight for baseball integration. He would go on to be a pivotal character in Jackie Robinson's story, which began for Smith on a baseball diamond just outside Charleston, West Virginia. Regardless, this is a strong contribution to sport history, to the history of school desegregation, and to West Virginia history. Anyone with interest in any of these topics should consider this work a top priority.

Взгляд молодежи на советскую эпоху: между перспективами новых идентичностей и вызовами войн памяти

The article is devoted to the results of a sociological survey of participants in the international scientific conference of students and graduate students «Young people's view of the Soviet era: between the prospects of new identities and the challenges of memory wars », organized by the Faculty of History, Political Science and Law of the Moscow Region State University on October 27, 2021. The main methodological optics were the principles sociological survey. The survey was aimed at studying the attitude of modern Russian youth towards the Soviet era. A feature of the sociological study was the high educational level of young people, a deeper knowledge and involvement of respondents in the history of Russia. It is indicated that wars of memory in the post-Soviet space arise precisely because of different interpretations of the history of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War. The theoretical contribution of the work lies in the fact that the analysis of scientific literature has shown that the wars of memory, their chronology are closely dependent on the characteristics of the processes and stages of the formation of new post-Soviet identities. The conclusions note that in relation to the younger generations to the Soviet era, in the assessment of its figures and events, there are significant changes in comparison with previous periods. The Soviet era as a whole receives more positive assessments, there is a rethinking of the assessment of its leaders. The results of the study allow us to form an idea of today's assessments of the young generations of the Soviet past, trends in the information field that shape the interpretation of history and influence the current processes of identification.

Finding a New Illinois History: Connecting with the Revival of Midwestern Regional History

Finding a New Illinois History: Connecting with the Revival of Midwestern Regional History

Radical Welcome in the Archives: What Does It Really Mean to Say “You're Welcome Here”?

Radical Welcome in the Archives: What Does It Really Mean to Say “You're Welcome Here”?

Who Killed Jane Stanford? : A Gilded Age Tale of Murder, Deceit, Spirits, and the Birth of a University by Richard White

Reviewed by: Who Killed Jane Stanford? : A Gilded Age Tale of Murder, Deceit, Spirits, and the Birth of a University by Richard White George Robb (bio) Who Killed Jane Stanford? : A Gilded Age Tale of Murder, Deceit, Spirits, and the Birth of a University. By Richard White. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2022. Pp. xviii, 362. $35.00 cloth; $16.05 ebook) In 1885, railroad tycoon and robber baron Leland Stanford and his wife Jane founded Stanford University in California as a memorial to their dead son Leland Jr. Twenty years later, Jane died in Hawaii under mysterious circumstances, almost certainly murdered by strychnine poisoning. Once her body was returned to San Francisco for burial, the local authorities quickly quashed the poisoning verdict, ruling Jane’s death the result of natural causes. In this well-researched and entertaining book, Stanford University historian Richard White sets out to solve the mystery of Jane Stanford’s death. Who Killed Jane Stanford? reads like a classic Agatha Christie “whodunnit,” in which the murder victim is revealed to have been a thoroughly unlikeable person whose every associate, from Stanford University president David Starr Jordan to her Chinese servant Ah Wing, wanted her dead. While many people had a motive to kill Jane Stanford, Richard White must determine which suspects also had the means and opportunity. White is well-placed to undertake this investigation, having twice taught a course about the case at Stanford and being thoroughly acquainted with the university’s archives. Nonetheless, it is no easy task to work a cold case more than a century later, especially when much of the original evidence no longer survives. [End Page 203] The victim, Jane Stanford, was a wealthy and powerful woman, having gained control of her husband’s vast fortune upon his death in 1893. While the press extolled Mrs. Stanford as a pious philanthropist, she was also a bully who tyrannized everyone she had authority over. She micromanaged all aspects of university affairs, from faculty hires to the cost of doorstops in campus buildings. An ardent spiritualist, Jane claimed that she consulted her dead husband and son on all important decisions, or as White pithily states, “ghosts ran the university” (p. 67). Jane kept Stanford University on a very tight leash, as the initial endowment was quite meager. The university would only acquire the bulk of the Stanford fortune upon her death. Stanford University benefited from Jane’s death, but so did some of her relatives and employees that she left bequests. Jane’s killer was persistent, poisoning her twice before she died. The first attempt took place in San Francisco on January 14, 1905, when rat poison containing strychnine was added to a bottle of Poland Spring Water on Jane’s bedside table. The second, successful, poisoning took place six weeks later in Hawaii on February 28. On that occasion, Jane ingested pure strychnine that had been mixed into bicarbonate of soda, which she took for indigestion. In unravelling the mystery surrounding Jane Stanford’s death, White reveals much about the social and cultural life of Gilded Age America and the operations of police departments and civic authorities. Ironically, in Hawaii, a thinly populated American overseas territory with few modern scientific facilities, local officials conducted a thorough and highly professional investigation. The conclusion of the Honolulu coroner’s jury that Stanford had been poisoned “with felonious intent by some person or persons unknown” is undoubtedly true (p. 211). Whereas in San Francisco, the largest and most sophisticated city in the western United States, the authorities made a mess of things, replacing the Hawaiian homicide verdict with the preposterous finding that Stanford had suffered a heart attack after a bout of over-eating. As White argues, a cover-up was underway, motivated by a desire quickly to secure Stanford’s vast fortune for the university and the [End Page 204] state of California. A long, drawn-out murder investigation could delay settling the estate. Likewise, a finding of suicide, as some contemporaries suggested, might lead to Mrs. Stanford being declared insane, thus casting doubt on the validity of her will. In exploring the various issues raised by Jane Stanford’s murder, the book...

New Horizons and New Challenges: Developments in the Modern Languages in the University of Leeds, 1914–18

The history of British universities before 1945 remains poorly understood. In particular, the factors shaping new academic developments, especially in the humanities, are under-researched. This paper looks at the development of teaching and research in the Modern Languages at the University of Leeds during the First World War, a period that was pivotal in the creation of new departments and programmes in many universities. Using extensive archival sources, the paper examines the pressures that led to the creation of new departments and the interplay of local and national influences that stimulated such change. Tensions are identified, such as that between employers urging an emphasis on the spoken language necessary for trade and commerce, and an ‘academic’ perspective that favoured more linguistic study and work on literature or history. Other factors, such as funding issues, institutional leadership, links with other educational institutions, staffing and student recruitment are also considered. In conclusion, the paper sheds light not only on developments in the Modern Languages, but also on the working of universities in the first half of the twentieth century.

A Ghostly Closure? The Strange History of Brinkley Female College, Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism, and the Terminal Effects of Sensationalist Journalism

In 1871, Brinkley Female College in Memphis, Tennessee, closed due to a ghost story, regional interest in Spiritualism, and sensationalist journalism that harmed the short-lived academy. Spiritualism—a religio-spiritual movement punctuated by medium-guided communications between the living and deceased—was well-followed, though often contested during the nineteenth century. Spiritualism grew in popularity in the American South due to mass deaths resulting from yearly epidemics and the American Civil War. At the same time, sensationalist print media was widespread, and newspaper firms profited from unchecked accounts of Spiritualist seances and supernatural encounters. In the midst of this, higher education had expanded across the state of Tennessee. In the early years of Memphis-based women’s higher education, newspapers stoked interest in the paranormal by publishing unverified events attributed to a local women’s college. Sensationalist, penny-dreadful newspaper accounts influenced public perceptions, caused enrollment decline at Brinkley Female College, and resulted in institutional closure. As such, this case study recounts an unusual catalytic moment within the context of heightened Spiritualistic belief and uncouth journalistic practices. Ultimately, this study seeks to detail the influence of regional religious practices and sensational journalism on institutional termination.

Students' Perception of Syiah Kuala University History Education Against Online Lectures as a Learning Tool During the COVID-19 Pandemic

This study aims to determine the perception of historical education students at Syiah Kuala University (USK) towards online learning in terms of several indicators, namely learning materials and evaluation questions, community, online lecturers, collaboration opportunities, and multimedia. The approach used in this research is a qualitative approach with the type of phenomenological research. The subjects of this research were USK history education students batch 2018. Data collection was carried out by interview. Data analysis techniques with data reduction, data presentation, and drawing conclusions. The results showed that the materials and evaluation questions were available and could be downloaded by students. Have a community to learn and discuss together. Students are more inclined to video conference-based media in the implementation of online learning, namely Google Meet with Google Classroom as a forum for collecting assignments. The use of media has not been maximized.

Soviet Ukrainian Germanistics in Personal Dimension: Memoirs of Professor Yuri Mytsyk about Anatolii Zavialov

The publication presents the memoirs of professor, Father Yuri Mytsyk about Soviet Ukrainian germanist Anatolii Zavialov. Yuri Mytsyk worked with Anatolii Zavialov at the same department from 1974 till 1989, and from 1975 carried out the duties of his deputy.
 Zavialov’s academic life and his teaching career in 1960s-2000s was connected to Dnipropetrovsk university. At that time Zavialov actively studied the contemporary history of the German Democratic Republic, he was the author of many articles, including texts in prominent scientific journals, tutorials and published two monographs. He was one of the few Soviet germanists, who had business trips not only to the German Democratic Republic, but also behind the “Iron Curtain”. Zavialov also had the experience of teaching in the universities abroad. As the head of the department of world history, Zavialov made efforts to form a research direction in historical German studies at the university. The majority of dissertations, defended under his scientific supervision, were devoted to German history of the XXth century. Some of his graduate students-germanists continued their career at the department, and it became possible to create a strong center of German studies and turn the department of world history into a center of historical germanistics. To provide the opportunities to publish research in German history, in 1973 the scientific edition “The Questions of German History” was founded at the department of world history of Dnipropetrovsk national university, later it received the status of inter-university scientific edition. Articles here were published by historians-germanists from Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, the study of the history of the German Democratic Republic went bankrupt and Zavialov turned to the history of German diaspora in Ukraine. He focused on political history of the German colonies at the beginning of the XXth century and the questions of the history of colonization in civilizational dimension. The last years of the historian`s life were over shadowed by a sharp deterioration of health and decline in scientific activity.