World War I And Higher Education - 1663 Words

World War I and Higher Education Mary Catherine Sikes Societal Context On July 28th of 1914, the first shots of what came to be the world’s first â€Å"total war† were fired. The war would become the first arms contest fought primarily by large, organized nations since the dawn of the industrial revolution (Marshall, 1964). Though the war was waged between July 1914 and November 11, 1918, the United States of America did not begin sending troops until 1917. They united with the allied powers after the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915, an event that outraged Americans due to the loss of 128 American citizens on board (1964). Meanwhile, higher education in the United States began to see a drastic change that would transform†¦show more content†¦While institutional form was changing, academic standards were still lax, and institutions admitted anyone who had the money to attend, even if they were poorly prepared (2012; Cohen Kisker, 2009). Many higher education institutions struggled to survive World War I’s impact, and only two thirds of institutions remained open by the end of the war (Cardozier, 1993). Presidents of larger universities suggested that smaller colleges should close if they could not keep up with institutional transformation or become junior colleges to prepare students to attend universities (Cohen Kisker, 2009). The making of the contemporary research university helped some universities survive the conflict. The Association of American Universities (AAU) formed in 1900 aided in the increase of research based institutes, and throughout World War I research to aid the war effort through studies on explosives and industrial processes was supported through government funding (2009). The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps formed in 1916 and the Students’ Army Training Corps formed in 1918 allowed male students to enlist in the army while simultaneously living on campus and receiving training from the military. In the â€Å"B ulletin of the American Association of University Professors† in 1918, Lovejoy, Capps, and Young state: â€Å"In this