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Early Public Junior Colleges
A Resource for
Graduate Students and Researchers
This site is intended
to provide graduate students and researchers with access to primary
sources that describe the organization, governance, curriculum, funding,
and student culture of junior colleges established between 1900 and
1940.
What's New: Thanks to Terry Tollefson, the site now includes a complete copy
of George Zooks report of the 1920 St. Louis meeting at which the AAJC was organized. What
is of particular interest is that Zook not
only included each paper that was presented at the St. Louis Conference, but transcribed the discussions
among attendees following each presentation. This thoroughness has
provided us with an exceptionally rich comprehension of the wide
breadth of opinion of the junior college's social function before
World War II. Further, although Zook had
hoped that the junior college leaders attending the conference would
adopt his proposal to establish the AAJC as a national accrediting
association that would standardize this rapidly developing sector of
higher education, However, those in attendance refused. Instead, they
opted to establish an advocacy organization to enhance the public's
understanding of this new sector of American higher education.
To go
directly to the meeting transcript, click here:
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As part
of the effort to continually expand the range of documents from the
early junior college, today’s Fort Scott Community College has contributed an extremely rare copy of the
college’s 1927 student annual, known as the Maroon. This document can be found within the new
folder, “Student Documents” found to the left. When you
access the file, be aware that it is in a
searchable .pdf format and, given its
length, can take considerable time to download. Please be patient, as
the document is well worth the wait. Most importantly, the Maroon provides an extraordinary insight into the interests
and social status of students who attended what was, at the time, one
of the largest and most successful junior colleges in Kansas.
Importantly, there is little in the annual to suggest that the
junior colleges students were economically or socially marginal.
Rather, the annual suggests that they were typical of those who
attended most colleges in the 1920s -- conservative in their beliefs
(the YMCA was the largest student organization on campus for male
students, while Sesame, a social service organization, was the
largest organization for the college’s women students). A
review of the pictures of the students also suggests that they were,
if not affluent, at least aware of, and able to afford the cost of
adopting the dress and hair styles popular among the
socially-prominent of the era.
Also, the Moberly (MO) Area Community College has allowed its student annual from 1933 to be
made available on this site. It should be viewed as supporting the
argument that early junior college students were likely from
relatively affluent families, but simply did not wish, or were not
permitted, to leave home to attend college. The student photos, like
those of the early Fort Scott students, suggest that the college’s
students were well aware of the latest styles popular in Hollywood and had the means to imitate these styles.
Also, as with the students at Fort Scott, the Moberly students were quick to organize a
very robust extra-curriculum which drew on a wide variety of student
interests and abilities.
Coming
Developments
Currently,
a number of photos of early junior college campuses are being
gathered to provide visitors to this site with a better appreciation
of the scale of the early, public junior colleges. In a remarkable number of
instances, a community’s decision to establish a junior college
followed shortly after it construction of a large high school
facility (as in the cases of Rochester, MN, and San Mateo, CA.) However, in those cases where
a community was faced with the need to devote substantial high school
space or even construct a new facility to house a junior college,
communities frequently chose not to support the bond that would make
such a facility available. In the case of Philadelphia early in the 20th century, the
city’s School Commissioners refused at least four times to
authorize devoting space at the city’s prestigious Central High School to allow for a junior college requested by the
high school’s faculty. In the case of Newark, NJ, a junior college operated within the
city’s main high school. However, the city’s school
superintendent contended that the junior college, which was among the
largest in the nation at the time, required its own facility to
further expand. Voters, in a city that was extremely divided by race
and nationality, not only rejected the proposed bond issue but voted
out the entire school board, which led to the superintendent’s
termination and the prompt closure of the city’s junior
college.
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