About the Penn State
Educational Activism Archive

University Newspaper Collections:

• The Daily Collegian:
  http://digitalnewspapers.libraries.psu.edu/Olive/APA/collegian/
• PA Newspaper Archive (includes Collegian, Centre Daily Times; searchable):
  http://panewsarchive.psu.edu/

Web Resources:

• African American Chronicles: Black History at Penn State
• Remembering 1968: Moments of Change
• Penn State University Park Campus History Collection

Books:

• Sonenklar, Carol. We Are a Strong, Articulate Voice: A History of Women at Penn State (Penn State University Press, 2006).
• Heineman, Kenneth. Campus Wars: The Peace Movement at American State Universities in the Vietnam Era (New York University Press, 1993).

Articles and Chapters:

Labor Conditions:

• Byse, Clark. “A Report on the Pennsylvania Loyalty Act.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 101 (1953): 480-508. Addresses the different applications of the McCarthy-era Pennsylvania Loyalty Act at Penn State versus other institutions.
• Gershenfeld, Walter J. and Kenneth P. Mortimer. Faculty Collective Bargaining Activity in Pennsylvania: The First Five Years (1970-1975). New York: The Carnegie Corporation, 1976. Examines the failed attempt at Penn State faculty unionization during the 1970s.

LGBTQ Activism:

• D’Augelli, Anthony R. “Lesbians and Gay Men on Campus: Visibility, Empowerment, and Educational Leadership.” Peabody Journal of Education 66 (1989): 124-142. Analyzes evolving PSU administration reactions to gay and lesbian students between 1971 and 1990.
• Ferentinos, Susan. “Sitting In, Speaking Out: Pennsylvania’s Revolutionary Homophile Movement.” Pennsylvania Legacies 16 (2016): 20-26. Discusses PSU student activism in the wider context of LGBTQ rights movements throughout Pennsylvania.
• Rhoads, Robert A. “We’re Here, We’re Queer. Get Used To It. Gay Liberation at Penn State.” In Freedom’s Web: Student Activism in an Age of Cultural Diversity, 159-188. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019.

Racial Justice and Activism:

• Hoecker, Robin. “The Black and White Behind the Blue and White: A History of Black Student Protests at Penn State.” B.S. Thesis, College of Communications and Department of African and African-American Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, 2002.
• Hubbard, Kevin Love. “It Takes a Rhetorical Village: Reconstructing the Penn State Student Protests of April 2001.” Young Scholars in Writing: Undergraduate Research in Writing and Rhetoric 4 (2006): 25-37.
• Polletta, Francesca. “‘It Was Like a Fever …’ Narrative and Identity in Social Protest.” Social Problems 45 (1998): 137-159. Discusses Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) activism at numerous colleges during the late 1950s and early 1960s, including at PSU.
• Roser-Jones, Sara. “‘An Artificial Harmony’: The Pennsylvania State University’s Constructed Racial Narrative, 1955-1969.” M.S. Thesis, College of Health and Human Development, The Pennsylvania State University, 2012.

Sexual Violence Protest:

• March, Laura. “Memes to an End: An Analysis of Online Activist Art from the Penn State Blue Out Movement to End Child Abuse.” M.S. Thesis, College of Arts and Architecture, The Pennsylvania State University, 2013.
• Rodino-Colocino, Michelle, Christy Beck, Sophia Braverman, Erin Farley, Michele Hamilton, Ellis Stump, and Carly Weiss. “#ThisEndsHere: Ending Sexual Harassment and Assault at Penn State.” Communication Culture & Critique 11 (2018): 508-512.

Sixties Antiwar Activism

• Benson, Thomas W. “Rhetoric as a Way of Being.” In American Rhetoric: Context and Criticism, 293-322. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989. Closely recounts a Vietnam War protest at Penn State in 1972.
• Heineman, Kenneth J. “Campus Unrest in the 1960s: The Penn State Experience.” Pennsylvania Legacies 18 (2018): 6-13.
• Miles, Mary C. “‘A Change in Consciousness: The Penn State Students for a Democratic Society and the Neil Buckley Document Collection.” Pennsylvania History 63 (1996): 388-411.

Women’s Equality:

• Bix, Amy Sue. “From ‘Engineeresses’ to ‘Girl Engineers’ to ‘Good Engineers’: A History of Women’s U.S. Engineering Education.” NWSA Journal 16 (2004): 27-49. Addresses PSU administrator resistance to women’s science education in the 1950s.