John R Thelin
Biographic Data
| ID | 255637 |
|---|---|
| NAME | John R Thelin |
| GIVEN NAMES | John R |
| FAMILY NAME | Thelin |
| SIGNATURE | THELIN J R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Kentucky |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7553-2090 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 54 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 50 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 54 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1975 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Compensation for College Athletes: The American Saga of Commercialization in Intercollegiate Sports
Between 2021 and 2025, national media gave attention to federal court cases and legislation that established new policies for increasing the compensation of college athletes. Foremost was “NIL,” acronym for the “Name-Image-Likeness” payment guidelines. Although NIL was hailed as a “whole new ball game” for students as paid athletes, our research tempers news coverage by drawing from historical findings about trends and traditions in college sport…
The Inimitable Geraldine Jonçich Clifford, 1931-2024
She had a twinkle in her eye, a keen intelligence, and a wicked sense of humor.A petite woman, she loomed large among her colleagues, often asking sharp, challenging questions of scholars at conferences.To graduate students, she was an important mentor, one who would generously answer any question from a young historian writing from across the country. 1 Geraldine Jonich grew up San Pedro, the section of Los Angeles that was at the heart of comme…
Higher Education’s Paper Trail: A Tribute to the Research Resources Provided by the United States Department of Education
Creating the Big Ten: Courage, Corruption, and Commercialization
Winton U. Solberg's Creating the Big Ten is a superb work on a significant topic in American social and institutional history. Whereas many books about college sports are preoccupied with heroic players and coaches on the field, Solberg wisely focuses on governance and control in higher education. The Big Ten Conference was the dominant intercollegiate athletic conference of the twentieth century. The dominance persists today, as does the problem…
An Embarrassment of Riches: Admission and Ambition in American Higher Education
LaDale C. Winling. Building the Ivory Tower: Universities and Metropolitan Development in the Twentieth Century
Building the Ivory Tower, LaDale C. Winling’s analysis of universities as part of American urban history, provides an outstanding account of campus construction in the twentieth century. Architecture extends to archaeology, as Winling excavates policies and plans that academic institutions carried out in extending campus boundaries into metropolitan development over the past century. So, even as a monumental campus building pulled attention upwar…
Missions Impossible: Prospects and Planning in American Higher Education
Pedagogues and Protesters: The Harvard College Student Diary of Stephen Peabody, 1767-1768
Discipline and Indulgence: College Football, Media, and the American Way of Life during the Cold War
Why Did College Cost So Little? Affordability and Higher Education a Century Ago
Numbers, Please
Publishing deadlines can be a nuisance for an author. For example, in 1972 when the editor of Rolling Stone magazine pressed Truman Capote on why he had promptly cashed his advance payment check yet had failed to submit his manuscript more than a month after the publishing deadline, Capote replied, “Do you want an article that is timely or timeless?” Much to Capote's chagrin, the editor replied, “Both!” Capote's response was “Neither”—and the pro…
Success and Excess: The Contours and Character of American Higher Education Since 1960
Legacies of the Land Grant Universities: The Politics of Populism and American Higher Education
Pay for Play: A History of Big-Time College Athletic Reform
Pay for Play: A History of Big-Time College Athletic Reform." The Journal of Higher Education, 82(6), pp. 806–807
Twentieth-Century Higher Education: Elite to Mass to Universal
(2011). Twentieth-Century Higher Education: Elite to Mass to Universal. The Journal of Higher Education: Vol. 82, No. 3, pp. 347-349
The Great American University: Its Rise to Preeminence, Its Indispensable National Role, and Why It Must Be Protected
Journal Article The Great American University: Its Rise to Preeminence, Its Indispensable National Role, and Why It Must Be Protected Get access The Great American University: Its Rise to Preeminence, Its Indispensable National Role, and Why It Must Be Protected. By Jonathan R. Cole. (New York: Public Affairs, 2009. xii, 616 pp. $35.00, ISBN978-1-58648-408-8.) John R. Thelin John R. Thelin University of Kentucky Lexington, Kentucky Search for oth…
Campus Life Revealed: Tracking down the Rich Resources of American Collegiate Fiction
The Making of Princeton University: From Woodrow Wilson to the Present
Access and Excess: Selective College Admissions in Historical Perspective
Access and Excess:Selective College Admissions in Historical Perspective John R. Thelin The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, by Jerome Karabel. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005. 711 pp. ISBN 0618574581. Jerome Karabel's The Chosen presents a fascinating story central to the American ritual of applying to college as a way to get ahead—or, to provide a hedge against downward mobility. To appreci…
Taking Back the Academy! History of Activism, History as Activism
This interesting volume of essays prompts historians to go beyond business as usual by fusing scholarship and activism. Better yet, if the messages of this volume were heeded, they would probably transform the academic profession's conventional characterization of “business as usual” to include activism as an integral, not marginal, part of teaching and research. As such, it is simultaneously a graceful and unsettling work, especially for senior …
Reclaiming the Game: College Sports and Educational Values
(2005). Reclaiming the Game: College Sports and Educational Values. The Journal of Higher Education: Vol. 76, No. 1, pp. 107-110
Iconoclast: Abraham Flexner and a Life in Learning
Iconoclast: Abraham Flexner and a Life in Learning." The Journal of Higher Education, 75(3), pp. 362–363
Academics on Athletics
Additional informationNotes on contributorsJohn R. ThelinJohn R. Thelin is university research professor and a member of the Educational Policy Studies faculty at the University of Kentucky
The California Idea and American Higher Education: 1850 To the 1960 Master Plan
Journal Article The California Idea and American Higher Education: 1850 to the 1960 Master Plan. By John Aubrey Douglass. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. xvi, 460 pp. $55.00, ISBN 0-8047-3189-6.) Get access John R. Thelin John R. Thelin University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 88, Issue 2, September 2001, Pages 705–706, http…
Dangerous Donations: Northern Philanthropy and Southern Black Education, 1902-1930
Dangerous Donations: Northern Philanthropy and Southern Black Education, 1902-1930
New School: A History of the New School for Social Research
Stagg's University: The Rise, Decline, and Fall of Big-Time Football at Chicago
For this first case study of college football by a social historian, Lester has brought life to the story of a university football program that had an unusual beginning, a glorious middle, and a unique and inglorious conclusion. The nation's first tenured coach and the most creative and entrepreneurial of all college coaches from the 1890s to the 1920s, Amos Alonzo Stagg headed a program marked by creation of the lettermans club and by the domina…
Pay for Play: A History of Big-Time College Athletic Reform
Pay for Play: A History of Big-Time College Athletic Reform." The Journal of Higher Education, 82(6), pp. 806–807
Good Sports: Historical Perspective on the Political Economy of Intercollegiate Athletics in the Era of Title IX, 1972–1997
Additional informationNotes on contributorsJohn R. ThelinJohn R. Thelin is professor of the history of higher education and public policy in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Kentucky
Games Colleges Play: Scandal and Reform in Intercollegiate Athletics
(1995). Games Colleges Play: Scandal and Reform in Intercollegiate Athletics. The Journal of Higher Education: Vol. 66, No. 5, pp. 598-600
The Great American University: Its Rise to Preeminence, Its Indispensable National Role, and Why It Must Be Protected
Journal Article The Great American University: Its Rise to Preeminence, Its Indispensable National Role, and Why It Must Be Protected Get access The Great American University: Its Rise to Preeminence, Its Indispensable National Role, and Why It Must Be Protected. By Jonathan R. Cole. (New York: Public Affairs, 2009. xii, 616 pp. $35.00, ISBN978-1-58648-408-8.) John R. Thelin John R. Thelin University of Kentucky Lexington, Kentucky Search for oth…
Campus Life Revealed: Tracking down the Rich Resources of American Collegiate Fiction
Good Sports? Historical Perspective on the Political Economy of Intercollegiate Athletics in the Era of Title IX, 1972-1997
John R. Thelin, Good Sports? Historical Perspective on the Political Economy of Intercollegiate Athletics in the Era of Title IX, 1972-1997, The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 71, No. 4 (Jul. - Aug., 2000), pp. 391-410
The Idea of a University: John Henry Newman
(1997). The Idea of a University: John Henry Newman. The Journal of Higher Education: Vol. 68, No. 5, pp. 588-589
An Embarrassment of Riches: Admission and Ambition in American Higher Education
Why Did College Cost So Little? Affordability and Higher Education a Century Ago
Success and Excess: The Contours and Character of American Higher Education Since 1960
Twentieth-Century Higher Education: Elite to Mass to Universal
(2011). Twentieth-Century Higher Education: Elite to Mass to Universal. The Journal of Higher Education: Vol. 82, No. 3, pp. 347-349
The Great Transformation in Higher Education, 1960-1980
The Old College Try: Balancing Academics and Athletics in Higher Education
The Character of American Higher Education and Intercollegiate Sport
Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present
(1989). Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present. The Journal of Higher Education: Vol. 60, No. 2, pp. 232-234
The Emergence of the American University
Bringing the Independent Sector Into Statewide Higher Education Planning
The ideal of a comprehensive higher education planning agency was only partially fulfilled in the 1970's. It was especially limited in its ability to bring independent colleges and universities into statewide planning. The unfulfilled comprehensive statewide planning model makes an attractive case for decentralised decision–making. State planning, usually characterized by the so–called “bureaucratic model,” might be balanced by increased use of a…
Life and Learning in Southern California: Private Colleges in the Popular Culture
Looking for the Lone Star Legacy: Higher Education in Texas
The American University as Gatekeeper
Tales Out of School: Exposes of Elite Education
Film Review Section 1
Bringing the Independent Sector Into Statewide Higher Education Planning
The ideal of a comprehensive higher education planning agency was only partially fulfilled in the 1970's. It was especially limited in its ability to bring independent colleges and universities into statewide planning. The unfulfilled comprehensive statewide planning model makes an attractive case for decentralised decision–making. State planning, usually characterized by the so–called “bureaucratic model,” might be balanced by increased use of a…
Old Dartmouth on Trial: The Transformation of the Academic Community in Nineteenth-Century America
Old Dartmouth on Trial: The Transformation of the Academic Community in Nineteenth-Century America." The Journal of Higher Education, 55(1), pp. 79–80
Selecting America's Brightest and Best
New School: A History of the New School for Social Research
The Emergence of the American University
Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present
(1989). Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present. The Journal of Higher Education: Vol. 60, No. 2, pp. 232-234
The Old College Try: Balancing Academics and Athletics in Higher Education
The Character of American Higher Education and Intercollegiate Sport
Left Outs and Left Overs: The Limits of Education and Social Reform since 1890
The Great Transformation in Higher Education, 1960-1980
International and Historical Roots of American Higher Education
tistics he goes to the popular English-language press rather than to indigenous reports of higher value; for anecdotes he goes to published general histories and biographies but seldom to primary sources. And it must be said that some of his facts and figures fail to meet even a threshold test of reliability and that some of his case materials fail to add anything new to twice-told tales. This does not mean that shoppers for useful information ab…
The Uneasy Public Policy Triangle in Higher Education: Quality, Diversity, and Budgetary Efficiency
The Uneasy Public Policy Triangle in Higher Education: Quality, Diversity, and Budgetary Efficiency." The Journal of Higher Education, 64(2), pp. 237–238
The Launching of Duke University, 1924-1949
Games Colleges Play: Scandal and Reform in Intercollegiate Athletics
Journal Article Games Colleges Play: Scandal and Reform in Intercollegiate Athletics. By John R. Thelin. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. xx, 252 pp. $34.95, ISBN 0-80184716-8.) Get access Steven A. Riess Steven A. Riess Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, Illinois Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 82, Issue 2, September 1995, Pages 803–804, https:/…
Fundamental Development of the Social Sciences: Rockefeller Philanthropy and the United States Social Science Research Council
Games Colleges Play: Scandal and Reform in Intercollegiate Athletics
(1995). Games Colleges Play: Scandal and Reform in Intercollegiate Athletics. The Journal of Higher Education: Vol. 66, No. 5, pp. 598-600
Games Colleges Play: Scandal and Reform in Intercollegiate Athletics
In Games Colleges Play John Thelin chronicles the history of intercollegiate athletics from 1910 to 1990 from the early, glory days of Knute Rockne and the "Gipper" to the modern era of big budgets, powerful coaches, and pampered players. He describes how "extracurricular" sports programs seldom accorded equal prominence with teaching and research in mission statements or annual reports have become central to the life of many universities. As adm…
Games Colleges Play: Scandal and Reform in Intercollegiate Athletics
Stagg's University: The Rise, Decline, and Fall of Big-Time Football at Chicago
For this first case study of college football by a social historian, Lester has brought life to the story of a university football program that had an unusual beginning, a glorious middle, and a unique and inglorious conclusion. The nation's first tenured coach and the most creative and entrepreneurial of all college coaches from the 1890s to the 1920s, Amos Alonzo Stagg headed a program marked by creation of the lettermans club and by the domina…
The Rise of American Research Universities: Elites and Challengers in the Postwar Era
Journal Article The Rise of American Research Universities: Elites and Challengers in the Postwar Era. By Hugh Davis Graham and Nancy Diamond. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. viii, 319pp. $39.95, ISBN0-8018-5425-3.) Get access John R. Thelin John R. Thelin University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 84, Issue 3, December …
Political science (42 works) · Sociology (36 works) · Law (29 works) · Law (25 works) · Higher education (23 works) · Psychology (21 works) · Mathematics education (14 works) · Sports, Gender, and Society (14 works) · History (12 works) · Pedagogy (11 works)