Running head: HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY Salsman !

Historical Biography:

My Families Historical Context in American Higher Education

Scott Salsman

Azusa Pacific University

Running head: HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY Salsman !2

Historical Biography

My families journey into higher education started with a dream. It was a dream for a

better life for their families. It was dream that one day all of their hard work and labor would pay

off for the generations that followed them. Throughout this paper I will trace my familys

involvement in higher education. I will look at their background and how the historical context

played a role in their ability and willingness to attend school.

First, I want to give context to my family. My fathers family are immigrants for Holland.

They moved to American just before the civil war and lived in Boston. During the war time they

moved to North Dakota and that is where my great grandfather and great grandmother were born.

Being immigrant family with no formal education they became farmers. They became tired of

farming and moved to southern California for the hope of a new life. My grandfather was born in

Pasadena, California and my grandmother was born in Burbank, California. Her family has a

very similar story to that of my grandfathers. Both of my grandparents were born just before the

US involvement in world war II. My grandfather was a gifted baseball player and my

grandmother was a gifted artist. While they were both ready to attend school to purse both to

those things they became pregnant with my uncle so my grandfather enlisted in the military. My

father is the youngest of three children and none of them attend college.

My mothers side is a very different journey. While I do not have a significant amount of

knowledge of my families history on that side I do know that my grandmother immigrated here

from Mexico when she was four years old and moved to El Monte, CA. Her family is from

various parts of Mexico including Durango and Chihuahua. My grandfather was born to a

Mexican immigrant and a Native American women from an Apache tribe. He was born on a
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Native American reservation and was raised their until he was thirteen. Both of my grandparents

did not have access to higher education, my grandmother speaking only Spanish until she was

sixteen years old did not go to school passed eighth grade. My grandfather who only spoke the

native Apache language and Spanish started working at a bakery at thirteen and did not go to any

formal schooling. My grandfather moved to California at twenty years old to drive trucks for a

shipping company. My mother is one of seven children. The oldest was on her way to going to

Long Beach State on a full art scholarship in a joint assistantship program with the Disney

company. During the summer before her first semester, my grandfather left my mothers family to

be with another woman. My aunt had to forgo her scholarship and help raise my mothers

younger siblings. Following those events my mothers family had to work from a very young age

and did not have the resources to continue their education.

I am the first in my family to go to college. What it interesting to see is that neither

family went on to further their education but the reasoning for each was so different. For my

grandmother on my mothers side it was the poverty and prejudice that she faced growing up that

lead her to have to leave her education and such a young age. For my grandfather on my fathers

side it was the social norm and expectation that he go into the military and provide for his family.

It was the 60s and was the middle of college protest and a change is the young peoples culture.

My grandparents were not raised in a household that excepted that so they viewed college as a

place were those radical ideas are taught and their parents did not want to be exposed to that.

So much of why my family did not pursue higher education was because of the historical

climate that they were in. As I mentioned earlier my grandmother was a immigrant with very

little education during a time with extreme racial tension. Even if she wanted to or had the ability
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to continue her education it would have been an extreme uphill battle. This correlates with the

next section of this paper. We know that historical context on why my family was not able to

attend college, but it is important to see what the higher education landscape looked like when it

was there time to go to college as well as my parents time to go to college.

Thelin describes this time period that my family would have gone into higher education

as the Golden Age (Thelin, 2011, p. 260). It is called this because of the growing access to

higher education. Students were able to attend universities that would not have normally had the

chance and Thelin says that this stage was marked by the three ps, prosperity, prestige, and

popularity (Thelin, 2011, p.260). This mass access to education was marked by the start of the

junior college (now community college). This time period was also marked by the introduction

of for profit institutions. What its interesting about this time is that with the increase is access to

higher education no one in my family took part in it. This was still early on in my grandparents

journey but from talking to them, I know that they did not see college as something that was

needed for what they wanted to do. As for my mothers side of the family it was not a matter of

not wanting to go to college, it was a matter of having the ability to go.

The next phase of higher education that directly impacted my family was the 1970s to

2000s, this was my parents time to be in college (Thelin, 2011 p.318). My parents graduated

high school in 1988 and were right in the middle of this new age of elite education into mass

education and the buckling of trying to accommodate high school graduates (Thelin, 2011). My

parents were in a interesting position after graduating high school. My mother never really

enjoyed school but worked hard and did well and my father did not like school at all and did not

try to succeed but ended up doing really well. His lack of motivation is the main reason that he
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did not go to college. To this day he said that his priority was to marry my mother and start a

family, which he successfully did. My mother attempted to go to school but coming from a single

parent, low income family she did not have the resources to persist onto graduation. What was

interesting was that Thelin explains is that during this time period federal funding and financial

aid was changing dramatically (Thelin, 2011). With more and more students trying to access

higher education there needed to be a way for them to pay for it. In my own family I see this by

my mother not being able to pay for higher education

Now to present day. I am currently finishing my masters degree, something that for many

years seemed unattainable to my family. I am the first person in my family, out of all my cousins,

aunts, uncles to attend college. Since I have started this journey I have had one cousin finish

college, one cousin attend college, and my younger brother is in his second year at APU.

Through my college career and especially in grad school I have learned to appreciate what those

before me have done. My section of the Thelin text is the most recent development in higher

education. I am going to school in the time of commercialization and consumerism (Thelin, 2011

p. 392). This is a time where college commercials and and letters are daily occurrences. My

brother started receiving college interest letters beginning his sophomore year of high school.

This is a time where it is expected that you go to college and graduate and get a job related to

you field. Higher education is changing everyday and I am experiencing that in the work that I

am doing and going to school myself. I believe that this idea of having to go to college has

become a societal norm and this stems from previous generations not putting as much value into

their education and seeing that college really does lead to a better life. The last piece of my

higher education historical framework is the emphasis of the holistic student. College is not just
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about going to an elite university and getting a job. It is about growing into the person you are

becoming. We see with the evolution of the career center and the assessments used there. We also

see this is Astin's theory of involvement (Astin, 1984). Sharon Parks describes 18 to 24 has the

critical years and these years shape your foundation in life, and many students are deciding to

spend those years in college (Parks, 2000).

The history of higher education has shaped my families view towards it with out them

even knowing it. For example my father is very supportive of me going to college and was

incredibly supportive when I decided to continue my education and get my masters degree. There

are times though were he diminishes the college degree. He is a very intelligent man but feels

that he has to defend his lack of college going experience by what I have done at times. I think

that it is an insecurity that he has with me now holding two degrees and he feels that I may know

more in certain areas that he does. It is an interesting dynamic. He grew up in a time where

college was important but he felt it was not for him and he could do just fine without it. In my

own life though there was never a question that we were going to college. My parents pushed us

everyday to be a better student and forced my brothers and myself to continue our education. So

he knows the value of a degree and knows that its important for us to go because he sees where

he is at without one, but can feel insecure about us obtaining a degree. From my mothers side she

sees that her mother faced extreme prejudice and racism while she was growing up. She did not

have access to education and she tells us that it is a privilege to go to school. I agree with her

completely. I think that historically my familys lack of association with higher education has

been directly linked to motivation and access.

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Writing this paper lead me to reflect on all the hardship and struggles that my family has

faced on order for me to go to school. I am truly appreciative of those sacrifices and I want to

honor them by continuing my education and not taking what I have for granted.
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Reference

Astin, A. W. (1984). Student involvement: A developmental theory for higher education. Journal

of College Student Personnel, 25(4), 297308.

Parks, S. D. (2000). Big questions, worthy dreams: Mentoring young adults in their search for

meaning, purpose, and faith. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Inc.,U.S.

Thelin, J. (2011). A history of American higher education. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

University Press.