Constitution Day and Higher Ed

By Christopher B. Nelson. Being a college president and student of history, my thoughts turn to the history of higher education in America whenever we are about to mark an occasion like Constitution Day, which occurs every year on September 17.
The American Revolution inspired a flurry of college-building in the 1780s and 1790s. My own college was formally chartered by the state of Maryland in 1784. This charter was a name-change for an already existing institution: King William's School, a free school founded under British colonial rule in 1696. St. John's College is thus the third-oldest institution of higher learning in the nation. Read more...