Throughout my academic career, I have studied the development and nature of liberal arts education. After spending two years at Harvard Law School as a Liberal Arts Fellow in the mid 1980s, I began to examine the history of professions and professional education in the United States. Since 2005, I have also been studying the history of finances of colleges and universities.
My research has been funded by the Spencer Foundation, American Philosophical Society, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Lilly Endowment, Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, Law School Admissions Council, and The College Board. My publications have received awards from the Association of American Colleges and Universities, the National Education Association, the American Society of Legal History, the American Educational Research Association, and the Association for Research on Non-profit and Voluntary Associations.
In 1998 I was awarded a Senior Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies, and in 2012 a Guggenheim Fellowship. My authored books include:
• The Pursuit of “Free Money”: The Escalating Cost and Wealth of Colleges and Universities, 1870s-2020s (in preparation)
• The Intellectual Sword: Harvard Law School, the Second Century, with Daniel R. Coquillette (2020).
• On the Battlefield of Merit: Harvard Law School, the First Century, with Daniel R. Coquillette (2015).
• The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Documentary History (2010)
• The Inception of Modern Professional Education: C. C. Langdell, 1826-1906 (2009, 2014)
• The Condition of American Liberal Education: Pragmatism and a Changing Tradition, edited by Robert Orrill (1995)
• The 'True Professional Ideal' in America: A History, (1992, 1995).
• Orators and Philosophers: A History of the Idea of Liberal Education, (1986, 1987, 1996). (Forthcoming in Chinese translation.)
In 1971, I earned the B.A. from Dartmouth College, summa cum laude, and in 1981 completed a joint degree program at Harvard University comprising the M.Div., magna cum laude, and the Ed.D. with distinction.