NEA and Academe Through the Years

College and university faculty have played prominent roles in the National Education Association from the Association's very beginning. During NEA's first 60 years, there was hardly a leader in American higher education who was not also a leader in the NEA, as noted in this historical essay by Donald J. Keck, an NEA organizational specialist. Keck takes a look at higher education's impact on the history of NEA.

The National Education Association was founded in 1857 in Philadelphia. Among its founding members, at least one-fourth were faculty members or administrators from institutions of higher education. Higher education founding members included John Seeley Hart of Princeton, Calvin Pease of the University of Vermont, James R. Challen of Northwestern University, Calvin S. Pennell of Washington University, Henry Duval Gregory of Girard College, Lorin Andrews of Kenyon College, and Zalmon Richards. Richards was founder of the Union Academy in Washington, D.C. and a member of the faculty at Columbian College (now George Washington University). Richards was also elected NEA's first president in 1858.

During the latter half of the 19th and early decades of the 20th centuries, many of the most important figures in American higher education were also leaders in the NEA.

Altogether, from 1858 to 1920, 24 of NEA's presidents came from institutions of higher education. Among those are: Samuel Stillman Greene (Brown University) NEA President 1864-65, Eli Todd Tappan (Kenyon College) NEA President 1882-83, James Hulme Canfield (State University of Kansas) NEA President 1889-90, Nicholas Murray Butler (Columbia University) NEA President 1894-95, Charles W. Elliot (Harvard University) NEA President 1902-03, Ella Flagg Young¹ (University of Chicago) NEA President 1911-12, Joseph Swain (Swarthmore College and Indiana University) NEA President 1913-14, David Starr Jordan (Stanford University) NEA President 1914-15, George Drayton Strayer (Columbia) NEA President 1918-19.

Among the early NEA secretaries or executive officers were Zalmon Richards (Columbian College, 1860), David N. Camp (St. John's College, 1864), Samuel Holmes White (Peoria Normal School, 1866, 1872, and 1873), James Hulme Canfield (State University of Kansas, 1887-1889), William Robertson Garrett (University of Nashville, 1890), and Ezekiel Hanson Cook (Rutgers, 1891).

NEA's first permanent executive secretary was Irwin Shepard of Winona State Teachers College in Minnesota. From 1893 to 1912, the NEA's headquarters were located in Dr. Shepard's home at Winona.

Also active in the NEA's leadership during this period were the leaders of some of the greatest institutions of higher learning in the United States including Noah Porter (Yale), James McCosh (Princeton), Andrew D. White (Cornell), Daniel Coit Gilman (Johns Hopkins), W.H. McGuffy (Ohio University and the University of Virginia), W.W. Folwell (University of Minnesota), Lotus D. Coffman (University of Minnesota), and Guy Stanton Ford (University of Minnesota), John Wesley Hoyt (University of Wisconsin), William Rainey Harper (University of Chicago), B.A. Hinsdale (University of Michigan), James B. Angell (University of Michigan), Andrew S. Draper (University of Illinois), Daniel Read (University of Missouri), R.H. Jesse (University of Missouri), James H. Baker (University of Colorado), Benjamin I. Wheeler (University of California), Elwood Cubberly (Stanford University), and G. Stanley Hall (Clark University).

From the Civil War to World War I, the NEA served as virtually the only forum for which the leadership of America's higher education community could meet and discuss common concerns. During this era the leaders of NEA were the leaders of American education--at all levels. Whether from universities, colleges, academies, normal schools, or "common" (public) schools, educators active in NEA saw one another as fellow educators and colleagues. There was no separation of K-12 and higher education. Higher education leadership worked together with the leadership of the public schools, including such renowned figures as Horace Mann.

In 1872 a Department of Higher Education was created within the NEA, along with a separate Department of Normal Schools. For the next 50 years the Department of Higher Education served as the focal point for higher education concerns and activities.

Issues that concerned higher education in these years were studied and debated at the annual meetings of the Department of Higher Education. Among those issues: the question of college entrance requirements, the elective system, the classical curriculum, the place of scientific and technical education in the university curriculum, the role of the university in professional training, the nature of liberal education, the role of research in the university, the relationship of higher education to teacher preparation.

Some of the major issues that concerned the NEA during this period were the expansion of the normal school system (the teacher training institutions which became the state teachers' colleges), the creation of the land grant colleges and universities under the Morrill Act of 1862, and the establishment of the Office of Education in 1876.

One particular issue that deeply concerned NEA and its Department of Higher Education from 1872 to 1918 was the effort to establish a National University "devoted to true university work, providing higher instruction in all departments of higher learning."

The idea of a National University was first proposed to Congress by President George Washington. NEA adopted the project in 1872 and for the next 50 years NEA leaders devoted much of their energies to this effort. Even though congressional bills were repeatedly introduced--from 1872 forward--the National University was never established. After World War I, the effort was not revived, but the idea continued to be discussed at NEA meetings until 1937.

The next 20 years--from the first to the second world wars--saw a decline in the relative numbers of higher education faculty within the NEA.

The 1920s and 1930s, overall, constituted a period of considerable growth in NEA membership. Large numbers of public school teachers joined the organization, but there was no commensurate growth in NEA's higher education membership. During this time also, a number of other associations emerged to compete for the time and allegiance of higher education faculty and administrators.

By 1920, new associations included the Association of American Universities (1900), the Association of American Colleges (1915), the American Association of University Professors (1916), the American Council on Education (1918), and the American Association of Junior Colleges (1920). As a result, the participation of higher education faculty and administrators in the National Education Association diminished. The NEA began emphasizing the recruitment of public school teachers during the inter-war years.

Although the Department of Higher Education no longer met, individual higher education members nevertheless continued to play prominent roles within NEA. For example, the NEA executive secretary from 1917 to 1934 was James W. Crabtree of the State Teachers' College at River Falls, Wisconsin. Crabtree established the permanent headquarters for NEA in Washington, D.C.

Among the higher education faculty members who were active in the NEA during this period were six NEA presidents, including Frederick C. Hunter (University of Denver, University of Oregon) and Henry Lester Smith (Indiana University).

Other active higher education members included Guy Stanton Ford (University of Minnesota), who was chairman of the Higher Education Department from 1920-22; Harlan Updegraff (Northwestern University, University of Pennsylvania), who was the first chairman of the NEA's Committee of 100 on the Problem of Tenure ² from 1922-23; George Strayer (Columbia University) and Lotus D. Coffman (University of Minnesota), who served as the first chairman and the first secretary of the NEA Legislative Commission, created in 1918 to lobby the United States Congress on behalf of education; Charles A. Beard (Columbia University); Felix Adler (Columbia University); and John Dewey (Columbia University). Dewey was elected honorary life president of NEA in 1932.

No one played a more important role in NEA during the 1920s and 1930s than Fred Hunter. As chairman of the Committee of 100 after 1924, Hunter worked tirelessly to develop NEA's capability to deal effectively with violations of academic freedom and the principles of tenure and due process--whether they occurred in public schools or institutions of higher education. Hunter spoke out repeatedly on the subject and virtually every NEA study, report, and statement of principles concerning academic freedom from 1920-1940 bears his imprint. NEA established a Committee on Academic Freedom in 1935 to "investigate and report" on cases involving "the violation of the principle of academic freedom" and to "assist in every way" members who were "deprived of their positions in violation of the principles of academic freedom." In the meantime, NEA sought to define the standards of academic freedom.

A preliminary resolution on the "Freedom of the Teacher" was adopted in 1928. This was replaced in 1936 with a resolution defining and defending the principle of "Academic Freedom," which was revised and expanded in 1969. Other resolutions condemning "Loyalty Oaths" (1938), affirming the "Fundamental Freedoms" of thought and expression and condemning book burning and purges (1956), and opposing the censorship of instructional materials, teaching techniques, and opinions (1968, 1971, and 1975) were subsequently added. Among the NEA's most dramatic achievements in this area was the repeal in 1937 of the "Little Red Rider," a resolution adopted by Congress in 1935 forbidding the payment of a salary to any employee in the District of Columbia who "taught or advocated communism." All teachers were required to take an oath that they were not Communists before receiving their pay checks.

The 25 years following 1940 saw a considerable revival of higher education activity within the NEA. In 1942 the Higher Education Department began to function once again, changing its name to the American Association of Higher Education (AAHE) in 1952.

During this period, four of NEA's Presidents came from institutions of higher education, including Lyman V. Ginger (University of Kentucky, NEA President from 1957-58) and Lois Edinger (University of North Carolina, NEA President from 1964-65).

One of the most illustrious university figures to participate in the NEA at this time was James D. Conant of Harvard, the chairman of the National Defense Research Commission during World War II, U.S. High Commissioner for Germany during the post war occupation, and later Ambassador to West Germany.

Dr. Conant served on the NEA's Educational Policies Commission for 16 years, becoming its chairman in 1950. Other active higher education members included Russell Cooper and Horace T. Morse of the University of Minnesota, Paul Bulger of Columbia University, Samuel M. Brownell of Yale, Lewis B. Mayhew of Stanford, H.B. Wells of Indiana University, Edward Kidder Graham of the University of North Carolina, B. Leland Medsker of the University of California at Berkeley, S.K. Fretwell of CUNY, Ernest O. Melby of Northwestern University, New York University and the University of Montana, C. Addison Hickman of Southern Illinois State University, and John Terry of Central Washington State University. The early 1940s saw the long hard work of Fred Hunter and other NEA activists realized in the area of tenure, academic freedom, and due process. In 1941, the Association created the NEA Defense Commission, later renamed the DuShane Fund for the Defense to Teacher Rights in 1947. The first head of the Defense Commission was Alonzo Myers of New York University. By the time he retired seven years later, the legal defense of faculty rights had become one of the NEA's most essential services. Myers was succeeded as chairman in 1948 by Ernest O. Melby of the University of Montana. During this period, the NEA Legislative Commission worked for the passage of such legislation as the GI Bill of Rights (1944), the Fulbright Act (1946), and the National Defense Education Act (1958).

NEA also became deeply involved at this time in programs related to teacher preparation and the improvement of teacher training programs. The National Commission on Teacher Education and Professional Standards (TEPS) was created in 1946, and the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) in 1952. TEPS became the focal point for the involvement of college of education faculty in NEA.

The recent years of NEA involvement in higher education have seen an enormous increase in higher education membership, as the movement for collective bargaining spread from the public schools to the community colleges and then to four-year colleges and universities.

In the early 1960s, NEA responded to the growing unrest over salaries and other conditions of employment among public school teachers, especially in the urban centers of the east and middle west. The NEA began to re-examine its role by determining how best to meet membership needs. In 1962, a task force was appointed to study the problem.

The members of this task force included George Schultz of the University of Chicago and later Secretary of the Treasury, John Dunlop of Harvard University and later Secretary of Labor, Charles Rhemus of the University of Michigan, and Walter Oberer of Cornell University.

Task force deliberations resulted in the recommendation that NEA become the collective bargaining agent for those of its members who wished to bargain collectively. This was the beginning of NEA's involvement in collective bargaining--a dramatic policy change that was encouraged by a committee of university dons.

In 1967 another task force was charged with examining NEA's higher education activities and recommending new policies and programs. This task force included Charles Rhemus (University of Michigan), Walter Oberer (Cornell University), Arnold Weber (University of Chicago), Derek Bok (Harvard Law School and subsequent President of Harvard University), C. Addison Hickman (Southern Illinois University), and J. Livingston (California Junior College System).

One monograph, entitled "Faculty Participation in Academic Governance," resulted from both task force efforts. The monograph called for an enlargement of the faculty role in the academic decision-making process through increased faculty participation in internal governance mechanisms, but did not endorse collective bargaining for institutions of higher education.

At the same time, a number of community college faculties in Michigan were taking events into their own hands. Beginning in 1966 and 1967, NEA affiliates at Washtenaw and Jackson Community Colleges negotiated collective bargaining agreements. Other two-year colleges in Michigan, Wisconsin, New York, and Massachusetts soon followed suit. In 1969, an NEA affiliate at Central Michigan University negotiated the first collective bargaining agreement in a four-year institution.

The National Faculty Association of Community and Junior Colleges (NFACJC) was established by NEA in 1967. In 1968, a study was undertaken to determine the feasibility of organizing four-year colleges and universities. The results of the study led to a commitment of NEA staff and resources to organize higher education faculties at all levels for the purpose of collective bargaining.

The NEA proposed that the American Association of Higher Education undertake this task among the faculties of four-year institutions. The AAHE's leadership rejected the proposal and indicated their opposition to collective bargaining. The NEA then established the National Society of Professors (NSP) to organize college and university faculties.

The AAHE severed its ties with NEA and became an independent association in 1971. The American Association of School Administrators and the Associations of High School and Elementary School Principals also became independent organizations at this time.

The National Faculty Association of Community Junior Colleges and National Society of Professors eventually merged to form the NEA National Council for Higher Education in 1974.

The late 1960s and early 1970s witnessed the most profound change in NEA's history. The public school, college, and university administrators who had managed the affairs of the Association for over 100 years relinquished their control to classroom teachers and faculty members.

From the 1920s to the 1960s public school administrators had recruited teachers throughout the United States into NEA. By the end of the 1960s the teachers were in control of the organization. Community college, four-year college, and university faculty members participated actively in this evolution.

For over 100 years NEA had been essentially a professional society. In a single decade it became one of the largest and most powerful unions in the United States. By 1990, NEA had also developed one of the most effective legislative and political action programs in the country. All of this was achieved while expanding its professional development and instructional improvement programs. For example, a National Foundation for the Improvement of Education was created in 1969. Today, the National Education Association is both a union of professionals and a professional association.

The success of this revolution in the nature and functions of the organization was built upon an enormous expansion of membership. By the mid-1990s, NEA's overall membership had grown to over 2 million--higher education growth was equally dramatic.

Most newly recruited faculty members and academic professionals (AP) join NEA because of the Association's expertise, resources, and professional assistance in collective bargaining. NEA's legal services and legislative influence both at the national and--through state affiliates--at the state levels also attract many new faculty and APs to NEA. What is of common concern to all NEA higher education members are faculty and employee rights and welfare, an interest in federal and state legislation, and a need for the mutual support of NEA's more than 2.3 million fellow members. NEA higher education members come from all areas of the United States--Hawaii and California to Minnesota, Michigan, Massachusetts and Maine. NEA higher education members come from all types of institutions--two-year colleges, four-year colleges, and graduate universities, both public and private. NEA higher education members come from every academic discipline--departments of English, history, and political science as well as business administration, engineering, and law. Creating common cause with the faculty are the academic professionals and the support staff in the institutions.

The predominance of college of education faculty--an NEA characteristic of the 1950s and early 1960s--has been replaced by a broad-based higher education membership representing all academic disciplines and a strong infusion of other campus professionals and support personnel.

In the mid-1990s, the NEA leapt in the information age with the institution of the Higher Education Research Center, providing WEB communication, contract and financial analysis, and peer salary information by means of the Internet and CD-ROM technology. With the attacks on the academy growing in shrillness, the NEA research activity provided its members with the information and ammunition they needed to respond to the critics. The attacks prompted a dramatic increase in organizing in higher education as faculty, full and part-time, academic professionals, and support staff united to protect their rights and defend their professions. The growth of distance education and the concern that quality might be forgotten in the rush to increase revenues added a new dimension to the collective bargaining arena.

NEA and AFT began working closely to respond to the critics. New bargaining units were organized on a dual affilitation basis to make the most of the strengths of each national and state organization. In 1998 the NEA and AFT issued a joint statement on quality in distance education for the Higher Education Act.

Today, the NEA is the kind of comprehensive organization of educators it had sought to be from its inception in 1857. Nothing better describes this goal than a resolution adopted by the NEA convention in 1873. The language sounds somewhat archaic today, but its purpose remains unchanged over 100 years later:

Resolved: That the interests of education whether university, academy, normal school or common school, are one and inseparable; that all should have and show hearty sympathy with all other co-laborers in this general work, joining heart and hand towards the improvement and greater efficiency of schools of every grade, for the benefit of the individual and the safety of the state.

Donald J. Keck is an NEA organizational specialist in the Midwest Regional Office. Keck was NEA's first higher education organizer and has been with the NEA for 23 years.

Notes
(1) Ella Flagg Young was the first woman to become president of the National Education Association.

(2) The Committee of 100 on the Problem of Tenure was later known as the Committee on Tenure and Academic Freedom.

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