Agent of Democracy - Society for College and University Planning

Reconstructing a Democratic Tradition
of civic relationship there might be between the academy
and the public. With the use of the intriguing metaphor of a
“leaven,” we see a relationship that involved a transformative
and proactive organizing role for the state (i.e., land-grant)
agricultural colleges. We see a relationship that included the
work of building publics that debate, solve, and pursue a
broad, multidimensional array of technical, social, economic,
civic, and cultural problems and ideals. In essence, we see a
relationship that reflects an embrace of the task that Liberty
Hyde Bailey had assigned to land-grant colleges of agriculture
in 1909: “to direct and to aid in developing the entire rural
civilization.” As Bailey noted, such a task placed these colleges
“within the realm of statesmanship.” In other words, it placed
them within the realm of politics. It is within this realm that
academic professionals in the land-grant system became engaged
in public work as public scholars. In doing so, they
took up both responsive expert and proactive social critic
and change agent roles, acting not only as participants in
but also as organizers of public work, and as allies in creating
opportunities and ideas that support public making. 16
There are no published histories of the origins and
early development of the tradition of public scholarship in
the agricultural colleges of the land-grant system. This does
not mean that we do not know anything about the political
nature of the land-grant system’s agricultural work during
its formative years. Scholars in the field of agricultural history
have helped us to see that academic professionals who
sought to address agricultural problems and issues often did
so by practicing an oppressive technocratic politics aimed
at forcing the industrialization of agriculture. Their technocratic
work effectively—but not necessarily intentionally—
advanced a national “cheap food” policy that privileged
urban and corporate interests and national economic aims.
It not only impoverished and disempowered farmers, women,
16 Bailey, The College of Agriculture and the State, 12.
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