Ry Marcattilio-McCracken

author of Athletics, in "The Modern Land-Grant University"

November 4, 2015

Dr. Ry Marcattilio-McCracken has a  PhD in American history and currently serves as Lecturer in the History Department at Oklahoma State University, where he teaches the American history survey as well as courses on the Gilded Age and American Thought and Culture. He is currently working on a book titled "Through a Glass, Darkly: The Eugenic Impulse in American History," which investigates the intellectual and institutional history of eugenics in the United States on the Southern Plains from 1910-1960. He is currently the Editor of LATCH journal, an annual open-access and peer-reviewed publication which investigates the compelling role the literary artifact has played across any of the various registers (titularly, those of theory, culture, and history) of European or American society. Marcattilio-McCracken maintains publicly-oriented history of science blogs at slowlorisblog.wordpress.com and slowloris.scienceblog.com, and have likewise published essays at the Chronicle of Higher Education and Motherboard.

In an increasingly competitive higher education environment, America's public universities are seeking ways to differentiate themselves. This book suggests that a hopeful vision of what a university should be lies in a reexamination of the "land-grant mission," the common system of values originally set forth in the Morrill Land Grant Acts of 1862 and 1890. While hard to define, these values are often expressed by the one hundred or so institutions that currently define themselves as "land grants" under the three pillars of research, teaching, and engagement/extension. In order to understand the unique character of a modern land-grant institution, this book explores in turn the core mission of the modern land-grant university, the university environment, the university's public value, and its accountability. In a time of uncertainty in higher education, this volume provides a helpful overview of the many different types of value public universities bring to American society. It also offers a powerful vision of a future founded on land-grant ideas that will be inspiring to university administrators and trustees, other educational policymakers, and faculty and staff, especially those fortunate enough to be part of land-grant institutions.

URL: https://library.okstate.edu/news/celebratingbooks/2016-honorees/ry-marcattilio-mccracken

Last Updated: 12 January 2022