Winner of the 2002 Alice L. Beeman Research Award for Outstanding Writing about Communications from the Council for Advancement and Support of EducationAmong higher education institutions in the United States, for-profit colleges and universities have steadily captured a larger share of the student market. A recent trend at for-profit institutions is the coupling of job training with accredited academic programs that offer traditional baccalaureate, professional, and graduate degre...

While he celebrated higher education as the engine of progress in every aspect of American life, George Keller also challenged academia’s sacred cows and entrenched practices with provocative ideas designed to induce “creative discomfort.” Completed shortly before his death in 2007, Higher Education and the New Society caps the career of one of higher education’s exceptional minds.Refining and expanding ideas Keller developed over his fifty-year career, this book is a clar...

George Keller’s case study of Elon University’s transformation from a struggling college with a limited endowment into a top regional university is now available in paperback.Ten years after the publication of Transforming a College, Elon University continues to thrive as a school that reinvented itself and its community around the idea of inspiring and guiding students. George Keller’s now-classic account has been used as an inspiration and playbook for m...

In the middle of a church service, a man is struck by a sense of dread. As impassioned organ music fills the building, the man senses that the source of his anxiety is coming from a hostile organist. What is the root of the musician’s animosity? Is it real, or is the narrator just imagining it? This quick, suspenseful story from The King in Yellow gives readers a taste of Chambers’ mastery of the horror genre.

With this 1990 speech, American politician William Jennings Bryan presents a compelling argument against imperialism. He outlines how maintaining military force over other nations goes against core American values. The speech highlights specific issues that were current at the time, particularly US relations with Cuba and the Philippines. Though the speech is over 100 years old, its core points about American democracy ring true in contemporary foreign affairs.

The period known as the Avignon Papacy began in 1309, when Pope Clement V relocated the seat of papal power to Avignon, France. The French monarchy slowly gained control over the papacy during this time, and as they did, corruption and greed grew in the church. The troubadour and priest Raimon de Cornet staunchly opposed the Avignon Papacy for these reasons. He summarized his grievances in this noteworthy poem, in which he states, “I see the pope his sacred trust betray, / For while the ri...

President Woodrow Wilson entered World War I reluctantly, and he aimed to be strategic and fair when arranging peace terms to leave it.He delivered his 14-point treaty to Congress in January 1918. In it, he emphasized the importance of establishing free trade, restoring sovereign territories, and reducing arms. This speech outlined the terms on which he sought to establish enduring peace in Europe, which he recognized as vital to maintaining peace in the Americas as well as the rest...

With this 1914 address, President Woodrow Wilson declared his intentions for the US to remain neutral in World War I. “Every man who really loves America will act and speak in the true spirit of neutrality,” he said, “which is the spirit of impartiality and fairness and friendliness to all concerned.” This platform secured Wilson’s re-election in 1916, but it only lasted until 1917. When Germany restarted unrestricted submarine warfare against US vessels, Wilson would retract his sentiment...

President Woodrow Wilson delivered this address to the 1914 graduates of the US Naval Academy. While he congratulated them, he also said: “Do not suppose that your education is over because you have received your diplomas from the academy. Your education has just begun.” He asked them to consider themselves “sample Americans” to all they would meet as they traveled the world’s seas. He also reminded them how their unique position allowed them to view their nation from an international pers...

John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion is over 1000 pages long. “Of Prayer” is a manageable excerpt from this monumental work highlighting the theologian’s views on the nature and benefits of prayer. Calvin describes why praying to an omniscient God is still a necessary practice for Christians. He provides some helpful guidelines for prayer, detailing how to invigorate one’s spiritual life through reverent communication with God.

In “The Street of the Lady of the Fields,” horror writer Robert Chambers takes a more romantic approach to his work. The story follows an American student in Paris who falls in with a group of peers and the women who associate with them. As he begins to fall for one of the girls, she worries he will discover an unsavory secret about her life. This story also breaks away from the Yellow Mythos theme present throughout The King in Yellow, serving as a stand-alone story from the coll...

When an American sea captain sees a Spanish slave ship in distress, he reaches out with an offer to help. Once on board, however, the odd behavior of the captain, crew, and slaves leave him with an uneasy feeling that something is not as it seems. Melville based the plot of this novella on real events that occurred off the coast of Chile in 1799. Though it is not Melville’s best-known work, it is favored among scholars as one of his most complex.