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eBook details
- Title: An Alien Presence: The Long, Sad History of Correspondence Study at the University of Chicago (Article 12) (Report)
- Author : American Education History Journal
- Release Date : January 01, 2008
- Genre: Education,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 222 KB
Description
By including correspondence education in his organic plans of the University of Chicago, founding president William Rainey Harper made the new teaching format respectable--or at least respectable enough--for other large research universities to adopt. Neither Harper nor the University of Chicago introduced correspondence study into American postsecondary education, but their backing made its adoption possible, even in prestigious institutions. (1) Illinois Wesleyan University launched an external degree program, loosely based on the University of London's model, in 1873. This program employed correspondence courses as its only medium of instruction. A handful of other colleges and universities--most of which were affiliated with the Wesleyan Methodist Church--followed suit in the latter decades of the nineteenth century. However, by the 1890s, virtually all had begun the process of abandoning this first form of distance education. Even the Chautauqua Assembly, which--under the leadership of William Rainey Harper--had been one of the pioneers of the correspondence method, began phasing out its external degree program in 1892 (Pittman 2007). Only the University of Chicago's adoption of correspondence study as a legitimate form of serious collegiate instruction saved it from oblivion in American postsecondary education. Harper's stature in higher education made it respectable--and therefore possible--for the state flagship and land--grant universities to follow suit. Even before he accepted the position of founding president of the "new" University of Chicago (there had been an earlier, short--lived attempt), Harper began drafting the plans for a unique institution. In Official Bulletin No. 1 (the first of six), Harper announced that he intended to build a university like no other. It would consist of three major divisions: the "University Proper," University Extension, and University Publication Work. (He would subsequently add two additional divisions: Laboratories and Museums and University Affiliates.) The University Proper would be the most conventional; Extension and Publication confirmed his commitment to the dissemination of the knowledge generated within the University well beyond Chicago (University of Chicago 1891).