'More valuable than two Panama Canals': Higher education in pro-growth Houston, 1900--1990.

摘要

The present study examines factors that have influenced the relationship between Houston and three major urban universities: Rice University, Texas Southern University (TSU), and the University of Houston (UH). It attempts to answer the question, how did the growth of Houston affect the development of its urban universities and, conversely, how did the growth of Houston's urban universities influence the city? The study is an historical analysis of the intellectual, economic, and symbolic relationship between the city and its universities.; The study, organized roughly by chronological period, examines major trends that have affected the relationship between Houston and its universities. The dissertation considers the following historical developments: the creation of Houston's first higher education institution, the Rice Institute, with particular attention to the decision by the board of trustees to use the money held in trust as the Rice endowment for private speculative real estate loans; the consolidation of Houston and the Texas Gulf Coast as the center of the petroleum industry, and its influence on the development of curriculum at UH and educational philanthropy in Houston; Houston's civil rights era and the manner in which Rice, UH, and TSU responded to demands by Houston's African-American population for broader access to higher education; and the metamorphosis of Rice and UH into full-scale research institutions, initiated by NASA's decision to locate the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston then expanded during the economic recession that rocked Houston and Texas in the mid-1980s.; As historical analysis of Houston's disparate universities suggests, an institution situated in an urban area exists as part of the urban ecology and cannot escape interaction with its locality. The interaction between city and university is too complex to be labeled the responsibility of the one institution founded as an urban university. This research argues for the utility of an expanded definition of the urban university, beyond merely those institutions that have chosen an urban mission. This study also emphasizes how the literature of education administration can be enhanced by the inclusion of historical analysis, a frequently overlooked component of policy inquiry.