Acknowledgments

In late August 2013, I sat down in Nico Slate’s office for the first time. But we did not stay in his office long. Like we did during many of our meetings, we ended up outside as we discussed my research and teaching. Throughout the many stages of this book, those walking discussions sustained me through the various trials and tribulations of writing, challenged me to ask more critical questions of my historical actors and myself, and, perhaps most importantly, provided me a model of what it means to be a scholar, mentor, and friend. Thank you, Nico.

I also want to take a moment to express my gratitude to my other mentors and friends at Carnegie Mellon University, when this book was an unwieldy idea. Thank you to Jay Aronson, Wendy Goldman, Christopher Phillips, Scott Sandage, Lisa Tetrault, and Joe Trotter, all of whom helped me grow as a scholar and thinker. A special thanks goes to Judith Schachter, who always willingly put aside time to read my work. I am grateful for having had the chance to
learn with a group of supportive peers, including Christine Grant, Susan Grunewald, Mark Hauser, and Clayton Vaughn-Robertson.

Many of these discussions would never have happened without the influence of Ken Bindas. In 2010, after taking over a year off to travel, I returned to the classroom and had the fortunate opportunity to take Bindas’s course on modern American history at Kent State University. His approach—one that invited students to be coauthors and co-collaborators in the classroom—illuminated the richness and intellectual commitment of historical scholarship. I will always remember his class.

Over the course of writing this book, I have had the privilege of being able to discuss my work with service learning practitioners and former student activists. In particular, I am grateful for my discussions with Timothy Stanton, both on the sunny day in Palo Alto, California, and the gray midwinter day in South Bend, Indiana. And a big thank-you to the many individuals who willingly opened up their schedules to talk with me about their experiences, including Keith Archuletta, Heather Booth, Gail Falk, Marguerite Fletcher, Jimmy Garrett, Allan Guskin, Judy Guskin, Hillary Thomas-Lake, Harris Wofford, and many others.

I also want to thank Jonathan Zimmerman, who saw promise in this book even when I doubted it. I was especially grateful that he took the time to meet with me at the History of Education Conference in Arkansas, where we split a not very good quiche and a key lime pie but had a rich discussion on the multiple meanings of service in American higher education. That conversation—and the many emails and exchanges since—proved immensely valuable to the ways I thought about this book and how I developed as a historian of education. Thank you, Jon. Additionally, I received pointed feedback from Tracy L. Steffes and two anonymous reviewers, all of whom further developed this book. At Cornell University Press, I had the honor of working with Sarah Grossman, whose humor, empathy, and support were invaluable as I moved this from a rough manuscript to a final book during what was a very difficult personal time in my life. Just as importantly, Sarah’s early advice proved instrumental in providing structure and clarity to the work.

Every historian should thank the numerous archivists and grant funders. For this book, I traversed many states and cities. I would like to thank Sarah Hutcheon at the Schlesinger Library; Michael Edmonds at the Wisconsin Historical Society; Meredith Eliassen at San Francisco State; Sonja N. Woods at Howard; Lynn Conway at Georgetown; Jennifer Betts at Brown; and the amazing staff at both the John F. Kennedy Library and the National Archives and Records Administration. Without your work and insight, this book would still be lost in the archives. Just as importantly, I would not have been able to visit the archives without the support of fellowships and funding. I am grateful for fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and Carnegie Mellon’s Center for Africanamerican Urban Studies and the Economy (CAUSE). These fellowships enabled me to do a deep dive into all these archives very early in my research.

Finally, thank you to my personal community of support. To my family, who never stopped believing in me and supporting me, even when I might not have deserved such faith in my youth. And, to my best friend and partner, Alli: In ways that I cannot put into words, you have sustained, motivated, and inspired me. Thank you for all the times you put aside your work to not only listen to me as I vented about writing blocks, phrasing, and arguments but also to read my work and offer your own critiques. Without your support, I am not sure if I would have completed this book. In the two years that I revised and finished this book, we welcomed our first son, who has shown strength, courage, and wisdom well beyond his years. I can only hope that he applies such courage to making our institutions more responsive and more just in the ways that many young people sought to do in the pages of this book.