The politology of Woodrow Wilson in the context of the evolution of American universities: An analysis of contemporary discussions

Abstract

Thomas Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States, who served in this post from 1913 to 1921, is widely known primarily as great political leader who played one of the main roles in shaping the new, extremely conflictual international order that arose after the First World War. In modern historiography, for example, Wilson’s post-war foreign policy, associated with attempts to implement his famous Fourteen Points, the creation of the League of Nations, and many others, is studied in detail. Against the background of the dramatic collisions of post-war world politics, the fact, well known only to “narrow specialists”, that Wilson was one of the most influential political scientists, historians and theorists of university education of his time, remains in the shadows. His influence is still constantly felt in modern concepts of reforms in American higher education. The administrative activity of W. Wilson took place at the final stage of the process, the result of which was a radical transformation of higher education in the United States. The stable notion that the main contours of the reforms of university education at Princeton, initiated by W. Wilson, were quite clearly outlined already in his theoretical works, has never been in doubt in the scientific world. At the heart of Wilson’s reforms was the idea that the university should be seen as such an exemplary example of a form of community that, even at the very center of modern society, is able to retain its distinctive features. Wilson’s ideas and policies in the field of university education continue to actively influence modern theoretical discussions, their “stimulating effect” is direct evidence that they have stood the test of time in their own way, also because they were far from speculative and never lost connections neither with the world historical tradition, nor with the real world of politics.