From the Department of Shameless Self-Promotion

Recent Scholarship:


Day, Richard E., R Cleveland, and J Hyndman. "Berea College-Coeducationally and Racially Integrated: An Unlikely Contingency in the 1850s" In press at the Journal of Negro Education. Abstract: In this paper we consider the anti-slavery ministry of Rev. John G. Fee and the unlikely establishment of Berea College in Kentucky in the 1850s; the first college in the southern United States to be coeducationally and racially integrated. The Berea case illustrates how early twentieth century legal institutions were suffused with racism and justifications for racial discrimination even to the extent that the court neutered the laws intended to provide redress to black citizens, while approving of racial prejudice as a natural protection from what it considered to be an unnatural amalgamation.

Working Papers

Working Title: The Rural School Improvement Project:...1953-1957


Day, Richard E., Lindsey DeVries and Amanda Hoover. (Working Title) "The Rural School Improvement Project:...1953-1957." (Working Abstract)  Following so many decades of poverty and isolation, it is no easy task to gauge the impact of a program like Berea College's Rural School Improvement Project on the children and communities of southeastern Kentucky. Like the progress-minded projects that came before it - and those that would come after - the seemingly intractable challenges attending the Appalachian region kept educational equity at bay. Indeed, it would take another thirty-two years before the landmark Kentucky Supreme Court decision in Rose v Council for Better Education would declare the state’s inequitable and inadequate school system to be unconstitutional. The Rural School Improvement Project worked directly with more than 5,000 children and 63 teaching teaching fellows in 38 different schools over 13 counties. Project estimates claimed an indirect impact on approximately 45,000 children within the RSIP school districts.

Working Title: Massillon Alexander Cassidy: Progressive Schoolman

Day, Richard E., and Lindsey DeVries. (Working Title) "Massillon Alexander Cassidy: Progressive Schoolman." (Working Abstract) We argue that M. A. Cassidy was the best example of a progressive school superintendent in early 20th century Kentucky. As a nationally recognized superintendent of the Fayette County and Lexington schools, Cassidy undertook an aggressive campaign to replace every school in the district while implementing numerous progressive educational programs and greatly increasing school attendance. We still consider this emerging research that could lead to a small book someday. Maybe.