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...

Woodrow Wilson became the 28th president of the United States when he beat out President Taft and Theodore Roosevelt in the 1912 election. His election completed a shift to Democratic power across the executive and legislative branches. In his inaugural address, he explains his hopes for using this Democratic majority to enact the positive change for which Americans so clearly hungered. He ends with a call to unity, though, saying, “Here muster, not the forces of party, but the forces of h...

In a departure from traditional horror writing, “The Street of the First Shell” focuses on the inescapable horrors of war. The story follows a group of struggling artists in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. The characters struggle to remain safe and together during the 1870 Siege of Paris, when Germans shelled the Latin Quarter. This nightmarish story is part of Robert Chambers’ collection The King in Yellow.

Oscar Wilde upholds his reputation for literary wit from the first line of this 1887 short story: “Unless one is wealthy there is no use in being a charming fellow.” The young Hugh Erskine wants to get married, but his bride’s father declares him too poor. Dejected, Erskine gives his last coin to a beggar who is posing for a portrait. This clever story takes a turn for the better at the end, proving that kindness to strangers reaps unexpected rewards.

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.

While sitting on his private piazza, the narrator imagines life at an idyllic home in the mountains. In his daydream, he meets a lonely young woman who often gazes at his house from afar and wonders about him. Using prose rife with literary allusions, Melville explores the limitations of idealism. This story is found in his collection of short fiction, The Piazza Tales.

On November 20, 1820, a sperm whale struck and sunk the whaling ship Essex, stranding the 21 crew members who escaped on three whale-boats in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, 2000 miles from land. Up against rough storms, vicious sharks, and desperation leading to cannibalism, only eight men survived. One was First Mate Owen Chase, who published this account of the disaster. His story served as real-life inspiration for Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.