American Students Organize : Founding the U.S. National Student Association After World War II^L ^L An Anthology and Sourcebook

The founding of the U.S. National Student Association (NSA) in September of 1947 was shaped by the immediate concerns and worldview of the GI Bill Generation of American Students, returning from a world at war to build a world at peace.

The more than 90 living authors of this book, all of whom are of that generation, tell about NSA's formation and first five years.

The book also provides a prologue reaching back into the 1930s and an epilogue going forward to the sixties and beyond. After World War II, thanks to the help of the GI Bill, millions of returning veterans more than doubled enrollment in the nation's 1700 colleges and universities.

Thousands of young American students joined international clubs on campus, and many traveled abroad to help in post-war reconstruction, and learn about people in other countries.

The student leaders who emerged during this period were intent upon dismantling the old ways of paternalism, elitism, discrimination, and segregation.

Believing strongly in the nation's founding principles of liberty and justice for all, they brought this vision into their religious, social, and political organizations-and into the halls of student government. American Students Organize puts a human face on that pivotal time in American higher education-the time of the Cold War and the Red Scare, of the desegregation of the campus and of social organizations, and, especially, of creative engagement by students in civic and world affairs.

In order to tell this important story, the anthology project recruited the book's authors, who, over a period of nine years, researched over 150 college archives, and corresponded with long-lost colleagues around the country.

The resulting book covers the transformation of student life, offering a unique social history in a form not to be found elsewhere.