Outposts of Professors' Power: A History of Faculty Clubs on the West Coast

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 14
  In Roundtable Session: Historicizing Postsecondary Education Policy and Reform

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to track the historical development of faculty clubs at universities on the West Coast. Taking a regional usefully narrows the scope of the study; clubs created back East and in the Midwest usually were located in established towns and cities, but on the West Coast this was not always the case. Women were barred from joining faculty clubs for decades, and so developed their own clubs, struggling to secure space on campus. Even with their exclusive and exclusionary past, these clubs became symbols of faculty power. The history of faculty clubs has not been studied closely, and filling this gap in the literature will help us to better understand these organizations and their contested spaces.

Authors

• William Charles Purdy, California State University - Northridge

• Shannon M. Calderone, Washington State University - Tri Cities