Elizabeth Shermer
Assistant Professor of History
Loyola University Chicago
at time of fellowship
2014 to 2015
Shermer will complete a book that examines the origins of the contemporary crisis in public higher education. She hypothesizes that contrary to popular belief, state universities have always been subject to market forces. Shermer finds that there was never enough government funding to create a geographically-uniform system of mass higher education, and that as a result, public universities have long been influenced by private sector interests.