During the early twentieth century, Evelyn Warren (Ojibwe), Cleo Caudell (Choctaw), and Ruth Murphy (Cherokee) navigated a window of opportunity to do the unexpected. They individually attended Bacone (Indian) College in Oklahoma before going on to study at the University of Redlands in California. After each completed their degrees, they separately obtained jobs with the Office of Indian Affairs. Opportunities opened for the women because of a convergence of a pipeline between Bacone to Redlands; a mainstream interest in Indian culture, one that the Indian New Deal supported; and recruitment efforts of the Office of Indian Affairs. Paradoxically, the general population’s fascination with Indian culture drew upon stereotypes of Native women, demonstrations in which the women participated.

Using their life stories, I have constructed a narrative that gives insight into the everyday and unexpected ways that these women traversed their lives. From their early schooling to their college attendance, they push back against prevailing Indian boarding school narratives and give new insight into the varied educational experiences that existed for Natives in the early twentieth century. Their histories also reveal how Warren, Caudell, and Murphy challenged white expectations in some ways while upholding them in others. As educated, cosmopolitan women they successfully adapted to different cultures, but doing so called for reinforcing visions of Indian women as people from another time. In strategically using these images though, the women gained access to schools and careers that they might not otherwise have and used their agency within the confines of these structures to challenge the very images they portrayed.

This historical dissertation explores the public and academic discourse regarding the concept of academic freedom from 1890-1929, with the foundation of the American Association of University Professors in 1915 serving as a general midpoint of the analysis. Throughout this period the public academic freedom discourse was consistently connected to the maintenance and use of publicity on behalf of professors to advance and defend the interests and professional status of the professoriate as well as to inflict symbolic damage on the institutions and individuals who were deemed to be barriers to professorial status. Beginning in the earlier third of this time period, 1890-1910, professors in the sciences, as well as senior scholars and administrators from many disciplines, emphasized an academic freedom that was constrained and operated at a collective department or university-level whereas professors in the social sciences and humanities more commonly advanced academic freedom with no limitations and which operated on an individual level. Connected to these competing notions, the academic freedom discourse had a dual-professionalizing role from 1890-1929. It was a means through which professors attempted to legitimate themselves--individually and collectively--in the public eye as well as an important part of the academic professions'

internal struggle to define and redefine itself amidst a changing social and academic landscape.

This study examines Edward J. Wickson's involvement in the origins of California's secondary agricultural education curriculum. Wickson held a variety of positions in the College of Agriculture at the University of California from 1876 through 1915. Additionally, he was the editor of the Pacific Rural Press, an influential publication popular in the agricultural community. During this same time period, agricultural education in California's secondary schools took root and spread rapidly. Within eleven years, agricultural education grew from non-existence in California's high schools to being included in nearly one-third of them.

The purpose of this study is to understand the socio-historical context of the tension between California's academic and agricultural communities and Wickson's involvement in mediating this conflict, while quietly advancing his educational agenda. Additionally, this study explores the various changes in the agricultural education curriculum within California's educational institutions prior to the passage of the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917. By investigating the origins of agricultural education within California's secondary schools, this study offers a portrayal of the rural community during a period of tension and transition and an agricultural education community that struggled with self-identity during the early twentieth century. The data for this study includes a variety of primary sources, including personal correspondence, local and national newspaper articles, secondary agricultural education textbooks, and California's Agricultural Experiment Station bulletins.

Abstract. In this paper, we investigate how the high school experiences of Filipinos in the 1990s affected their trajectories towards college in relation to Latinos versus Asians. Filipino American students remain invisible in the literature surrounding race and racism – especially in literature surrounding K-12 schooling related to academic achievement and persons of color. These students share similar school experiences with Latino students, yet Filipino American students are rendered invisible to these inequalities through their categorization of being Asian. Through eight qualitative interviews, analysis of newspaper articles from the 1990s, and the examination of yearbook pages of some of the participants, this study finds that institutional, social/cultural, and familial factors all shape Filipino students’ educational experiences that greatly vary in results and impact trajectories towards college.

This paper examines the decision and process to desegregate "Mexican schools" in Ontario, California after the ruling in Mendez v. Westminster.

In this historical dissertation, I examined the process of curriculum development in the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) in the United States during the period 1959-1963. The presentation of evolution in the high school texts was based on a more robust form of Darwinian evolution which developed during the 1930s and 1940s called "the modern synthesis of evolution." Building primarily on the work of historians Vassiliki Smocovitis and John L. Rudolph, I used the archival papers and published writings of the four architects of the modern synthesis and the four most influential leaders of the BSCS in regards to evolution to investigate how the modern synthetic theory of evolution shaped the BSCS curriculum.

The central question was "Why was evolution so important to the BSCS to make it the central theme of the texts?" Important answers to this question had already been offered in the historiography, but it was still not clear why every citizen in the world needed to understand evolution. I found that the emphasis on natural selection in the modern synthesis shifted the focus away from humans as passive participants to the recognition that humans are active agents in their own cultural and biological evolution. This required re-education of the world citizenry, which was accomplished in part by the BSCS textbooks. I also found that BSCS leaders Grobman, Glass, and Muller had serious concerns regarding the effects of nuclear radiation on the human gene pool, and were actively involved in informing th public. Lastly, I found that concerns of 1950s reform eugenicists were addressed in the BSCS textbooks, without mentioning eugenics by name. I suggest that the leaders of the BSCS, especially Bentley Glass and Hermann J. Muller, thought that students needed to understand genetics and evolution to be able to make some of the tough choices they might be called on to make as the dominant species on earth and the next reproductive generation in the nuclear age. This was science for survival.

The Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) was the largest military training program during World War II. The program, created to meet "the exigencies of war," included developing the Army's manpower supply while training soldiers to meet the technological challenges of the war. In addition, the program also sought to reduce the impact of decreasing enrollments in higher education. To this end, the military partnered with over 220 colleges and universities who then provided training in engineering, foreign language and area studies, personnel psychology, and medical sciences which included dentistry, medicine and, veterinary sciences. The purpose of this study was to examine the ways in which the ASTP impacted higher education. In addition, this study explores how administrators met the demands of this wartime program. A review of the historiography reveals little information about the program's impact beyond its military goals. In order to understand the role of the ASTP in higher education, a case study method was employed. Washington University in St. Louis, MO was selected as the site for investigation. The institution provided a rich historical context due to its size, status as a private institution, and its location within a developing urban area. Data for this study includes primary documents from Washington University's archives, the Missouri State Historical Society along with local and national newspapers. Findings from this research assert that changes to higher education generally attributed to the GI Bill in 1944, began prior to the Bill's implementation due to higher education's involvement in war training programs. Results also identify the ways in which Washington University began the process of expansion and accommodation prior to the GI Bill. Lastly, the study reveals how administrators at Washington University leveraged the institution's agency through its participation in the ASTP in an effort to grow and develop the institution while increasing its prestige in the postwar period.

This dissertation study used an intersectionality framework to examine the experience of Japanese American women in their educational and vocational trajectories before, during, and after internment. The study explores how the vocational education program and employment opportunities in internment camps changed the educational and vocational trajectories of Japanese American women. Prior to the war, Japanese American women had limited educational and vocational options due to the Jap Crow infrastructure on the West Coast. During internment, Japanese American women accessed vocational education and employment experience in the camps. A move away from the Jap Crow and a wartime labor shortage enabled them to access employment that had been unavailable to them, including professional and semiprofessional jobs. After internment, as Japanese Americans moved back to the West Coast and into professional and semiprofessional employment, there were indications of the breakdown of Jap Crow.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the teachers' experience of the professional development program "Engaging Students in Learning about the Earth's Climate" offered by University of California San Diego Extension. It is a program that addresses the controversial issue of global climate change. I aimed to understand how the program was experienced by the participants (elementary- and middle school teachers) and how it impacted their commitment to cover climate change in their classrooms. The study also investigated how this particular program may have changed the teachers' classroom practice. Based on theory and prior research, I summarized characteristics of impactful professional development programs. Although the workshop did not respond to every single element for impactful professional development, my results revealed that overall it increased the participants engagement to teach about global climate change.

This study examines the founding of the Institutes of Religion, a supplementary religious education movement designed for college students sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). In 1926 the first Institute of Religion was founded at the University of Idaho in Moscow. The study examines the socio-cultural milieu of American society from 1910 through 1920, a period in which the Progressive Movement attempted to reform society. The leaders of the LDS Church were concerned with the ills of society. To help its youth, the Church expanded its private school system and emphasized its religious education programs. The next decade, 1920-1929, brought even greater concerns for the Church leaders. With the "revolution of morals and manners," they took steps to curb what they perceived as evil influences on youth and the corrupting influences upon their moral values. Two of the LDS Church's major concerns were the secularization of American society and higher education with its accompanying decline in religious faith and activity; the second concern was the increase of hedonism and materialism, which I am framing as worldliness. Another factor was the financial status of the Church and the economic recession that began in the 1920s. The Church leaders realized that they could no longer support their system of private secondary schools, the stake academies. They abandoned secular education below the college level and focused their resources on supplementary religious education programs. It was more cost effective to divest themselves of the academies and replace them with Institutes of Religion near college campuses. I trace the establishment of the first five institutes, illustrating how the movement evolved during its first decade, 1926-1936. This case study examines how at the local level the University of Idaho, in Moscow and Pocatello, the Utah State Agricultural College in Logan, the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, each reacted to the presence of the Institute. It examines how each Institute adapted to the socio-cultural context of each town and university.