Open Access in Higher Education

W hen the inaugural president of the University of Chicago, William Rainey Harper, first met with his faculty in 1892, he presented an idea that exemplified why the new president was thought of not only as an academic prodigy, but also a visionary. The university, resurrected from recent bankruptcy through generous gifts from Harper’s friend John D. Rockefeller and a collection of distinguished Chicago philanthropists, was designed in its new incarnation to be a Harvard or Yale of the Midwest, with the most accomplished faculty that money could buy and a mission focused on scholarship and research. 1 During his rise to the presidency, Harper declared that he had “… a plan which is at the same time unique and comprehensive, which I am persuaded will revolutionize university study in this country.” 2 In his faculty address, Harper pronounced it an unwise commitment of university resources for these handpicked professors to spend time on the general, lower-division education of freshmen and sophomore students. Instead, this general education should be relegated to a collection of junior-level colleges—something akin to thirteenth and fourteenth years of high school, where all high school graduates could enroll in college-level courses in a broad array of general, but essential, fields of study. When this general education was completed, the student could apply then to the university for more education in specific disciplines, leading to a scholarly and research-focused bachelor’s degree. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.