Skip to main content
Skip to main menu Skip to spotlight region Skip to secondary region Skip to UGA region Skip to Tertiary region Skip to Quaternary region Skip to unit footer

Slideshow

Timothy R. Cain

Blurred image of the arch used as background for stylistic purposes.
Professor of Higher Education

Tim Cain joined the faculty of the McBee Institute in 2013. Prior to that he was a faculty member at the University of Illinois and coordinated its higher education program. He earned his A.B. from Duke University, his M.A. from The Ohio State University, and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

Much of Professor Cain’s research involves historic and modern issues involving academic freedom, student activism, and unionization in higher education. Recent work has focused on the changes in students' political engagement in the 1970s, including lawsuits undertaken to protect sexually minoritized students' rights and battles over student voting rights. A distinct line of scholarship has explored teaching, learning, and student outcomes assessment.

Professor Cain's work has appeared in leading outlets across education and multiple subfields of history, including AERA OpenHigher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, the History of Education Quarterly, Labor: Studies in Working Class History, Labor History, the Review of Higher Education, and Teachers College Record. He is also the author of Establishing Academic Freedom (Palgrave, 2012), Campus Unions: Organized Faculty and Graduate Students in U.S. Higher Education (ASHE Higher Education Report Series, Jossey-Bass, 2017), and, with colleagues from the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment, Using Evidence of Student Learning to Improve Higher Education (Jossey-Bass, 2015).

Professor Cain is an associate editor of the Review of Higher Education and formerly served in the same role for the History of Education Quarterly. He is on the Council of Scholars of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions, and is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Higher Education, the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, and Perspectives on the History of Higher Education. He is a past member of the advisory board of the ASHE Higher Education Monograph Series and of the editorial boards of the Review of Educational Research and the Review of Higher Education.

He was a UGA Special Collections Libraries Faculty Teaching Fellow in 2017–18, received an Outstanding Reviewer Award from AERA in 2018, and, with Michael S. Hevel, won the AERA Queer SIG Best Article Award in 2023.

Curriculum Vitae:
Email:
tcain@uga.edu
Office:
008 Meigs Hall
Phone Number:
Education:
  • Ph.D., Education, University of Michigan
  • M.A., Higher Education and Student Affairs, The Ohio State University
  • A.B., History, Duke University
Research Interests:

Tim Cain’s research includes examinations of both modern and historic issues involving college students, faculty, and academic administrators. He has published works on academic freedom and tenure, graduate student and faculty unionization, student activism, the rise of academic administration, learning outcomes assessment, and teaching and learning. Current projects include considerations of the history of faculty unionization and academic freedom in the the 21st century.

Grants:

Timothy Reese Cain (PI), An Organizing Professoriate: Post-War Unionization in American Higher Education, Spencer Foundation, 2012-2013.

Brian Deal (PI), Nancy Ablemann (Co-PI), Gina Hunter (Co-PI), and Timothy Cain (Co-PI), Sustainable Campus Buildings and Grounds: Creating a  Research and Teaching Program through Ethnography of the University,  Provost Initiative on Teaching Advancement, UIUC, 2010-2011.

Nancy Abelmann, Rakesh Bhatt, Nick Burbules, Timothy Cain, and others, The Internationalization of U of I Undergraduates: Conceptualizing a  Transforming University, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities Collaborative Research Projects Initiative, 2010-2011. 

Timothy Reese Cain (PI), “The Second Wave of Faculty Unionization: College Faculty and the American Federation of Teachers, 1928–1941,” Bureau of Educational Research, UIUC, 2009-2010.

  

Hevel, Michael S., and Timothy Reese Cain. “'We Didn’t Think it Would be Well Received': The Gay Alliance of Students’ legal victory over Virginia Commonwealth University, 1974­–1976." Historia y Memoria de la Educación, 18 (2023): 41–75.  https://revistas.uned.es/index.php/HMe/article/view/35774/27831

Hevel, Michael S., and Timothy Reese Cain. "The Queer Student Affairs Career of Stephen M. Lenton, 1970–1980." Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education 15, no. 3 (2022): 261–278. https://doi.org/10.1080/26379112.2022.2102031 

Cain, Timothy Reese, and Erin A. Leach. "Removing Faculty: Patterns and Processes of Retrenchment and Restructuring." AERA Open 7, no. 1 (2021): 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584211058472  

Cain, Timothy Reese, and Michael S. Hevel. "'Gay People Pay Activity Fees Too': The Committee on Gay Education's Pioneering Legal Victories at the University of Georgia." Review of Higher Education 45, no. 1 (2021): 61–91. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2021.0014

Cain, Timothy Reese, and Rachael Dier. "Protests and Pushback: Women’s Rights, Student Activism, and Institutional Response in the Deep South.” History of Education Quarterly 60, no. 4 (2020): 546–580. https://doi.org/10.1017/heq.2020.56

Cain, Timothy Reese. "Collective Bargaining and Committee A: Five Decades of Unionism and Academic Freedom." Review of Higher Education 44, no. 1 (2020): 57–58–85. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2020.0035  

Cain, Timothy Reese, and Philip Wilkinson. "Influence Without Bargaining: Unionization at the University of Wisconsin, 1930–1957." Labor: Studies in Working-Class History 16, no. 2 (2019): 99–122. https://doi.org/10.1215/15476715-7323758

Cain, Timothy Reese. "‘Friendly Public Sentiment’ and the Threats to Academic Freedom.” History of Education Quarterly 58, no. 3 (2018): 428–435. https://doi.org/10.1017/heq.2018.19

Cain, Timothy Reese. "Student Activists and Organized Labor.” In Rethinking Campus Life: New Perspectives on the History of College Students in the United States, edited by Christine A. Ogren and Marc A. VanOverbeke, 165–190. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

Cain, Timothy Reese. Campus Unions: Organized Faculty and Graduate Students in US Higher Education. ASHE Higher Education Report Series, Vol. 43, No. 3. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2017.

Kuh, George D., Stanley O. Ikenberry, Natasha A. Jankowski, Timothy Reese Cain, Peter Ewell, Pat Hutchings, and Jillian Kinzie. Using Evidence of Student Learning to Improve Higher Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2015.

Cain, Timothy Reese. Establishing Academic Freedom: Politics, Principles, and the Development of Core Values. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Events featuring Timothy R. Cain
University of Rijeka

Drs. Tim Cain and Leslie Gordon will present a 16-hour mini-course at the University of Rijeka in Croatia on May 5-8, entitled Issues in the Professionalization of Professoriate: Teaching and Working in Global Universities. More than 50 participants are expected to attend the three-day sessions, covering curriculum planning and evaluation, student…

News Featuring Timothy R. Cain

In February, the Louise McBee Institute hosted nine current students, alumni, and faculty members of the Master’s in Research and Innovation in Higher Education (MARIHE), a collaborative Erasmus Mundus program led by Professor and Department Head Attila Pausits…

by Jewel Caruso

Professor Timothy R. Cain considers the role of labor unions in higher education in a book chapter published in the Research Handbook on the Transformation of Higher Education (Edward Elgar, 2023).

by Suzanne R. Graham

Timothy R. Cain and Gregory C. Wolniak achieved rank of full professor, effective August 1, 2023.

In fall 2022, as academic workers undertook strikes to improve their compensation and conditions, multiple media outlets tapped McBee Institute Professor Tim Cain’s expertise on unionization to better understand and convey the events.

The American Educational Research Association’s Queer Studies Special Interest Group recognized the scholarship of Professor Timothy R. Cain and coauthor Michael S. Hevel (associate dean for research, strategy, and outreach at the University of Arkansas College…

by Jewel Caruso

Since the beginning of the UC Strikes at the end of 2022, Tim Cain, associate professor at McBee, has provided insight and context throughout the discussions in major media outlets. Cain studies campus activism, academic freedom, and…

by Jewel Caruso

Timothy R. Cain, associate professor at the McBee Institute, provides context and insight in a Time article covering the ongoing strikes at the University of California, "How the. University of California Strikes Could…

by Jewel Caruso

Professor Tim Cain co-authored an article with University of Arkansas faculty member Michael Hevel that appears in the Journal of Women Gender in Higher Education.

Timothy R. Cain is quoted in the Chronicle article, “What That Ad for the Unpaid Job at UCLA May Have Been About” (March 21, 2022).

Support us

We appreciate your financial support. Your gift is important to us and helps support critical opportunities for students and faculty alike, including lectures, travel support, and any number of educational events that augment the classroom experience. 

Click Here to Learn More About Giving

Every dollar given has a direct impact upon our students and faculty.