Book Talk: The People’s Colleges
By Helene Dillard, Scott Peters, and Jane Mt.Pleasant
Thursday, September 26, at 4:00pm
Room 160, Mann Library
Challenged by recent economic changes, is higher education turning into a private rather than public good? Obligations to the people were implicit in the designation of Cornell University as New York State’s land grant college on April 27, 1865. Almost three years before, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Land Grant Act during dark days of the Civil War. Cornell continues its land-grant mission today, meeting ever-changing needs of communities with the Extension Service.
Ruby Green Smith’s book The People’s Colleges: A History of the New York State Extension Service in Cornell University and the State, 1876-1948, written more than 60 years ago, is essential reading for anyone working in higher education who shares a commitment to strengthening public engagement.
Join Helene Dillard, Scott Peters, and Jane Mt.Pleasant in a Chats in the Stacks book talk about the important lessons Smith teaches us. The book, re-released by Fall Creek Books in January 2013 to celebrate Cornell’s sesquicentennial, has a new foreword by Dillard and a new preface by Peters that explains the cultural significance of the extension’s mission.