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Readin' + Writin' for the Hard-Hat Crowd explores the history of an urban public university from its conception in 1964 to the dawn of the twenty-first century. The reader views this place in time through the lens of the evolving nature of «freshman English», an introductory curriculum that began as four semesters of Great Books. The author, herself among those once labeled «the hard-hat crowd», received an undergraduate education similar to that experienced by her contemporaries at elite private colleges. Yet, while this school, once considered a poor man's Harvard, was founded with a mission to provide academic equity, the curriculum evolved to one that responded to pressure for relevancy and practicality.
About the author
The Author: Susan R. Merrifield is Professor of English Education at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She earned her Ed.D. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, receiving a Woodrow Wilson/Spencer Dissertation Year Fellowship. She has published works in the fields of literacy and education, recently publishing the results of a study of principals and professional development in the liberal arts.
Report
«Susan Merrifield is one of a small group of researchers who has brought the lens of critical educational scholarship to the study of higher education. 'Readin' and Writin' for the Hard-Hat Crowd unpacks the linkages between liberal education, the urban university, and non-traditional students in a way that few studies have. The author has given us a masterful history of how faculty struggled over extending higher education to working class students and the impact of that conflict on the development of this public university and its curriculum.» (Barry M. Franklin, Professor and Department Head, Department of Secondary Education, Utah State University, Logan, UT)
«There is an element of Shakespearian tragedy in Susan Merrifield's wonderful account of one urban university's move from a clear though probably misguided effort to 'provide blue-collar college students with access to the cultural knowledge of the highly literate', (one that showed far too little respect for cultural knowledge of the students it was recruiting) to a school too often satisfied with a low standard of accomplishment. Yet there is also hope in her urgent plea that this society make a new - and as yet unheard of - commitment that links respect for student experience, high academic standards, and a significant new level of public investment in the hard hat crowd who are our future.» (James W. Fraser, Dean of the School of Education, Northeastern University)
