IHE Announces New Faculty Member - Tim Cain

The Institute is delighted to welcome Dr. Timothy Reese Cain as a new Associate Professor of Higher Education, beginning in fall 2013. Professor Cain earned his undergraduate degree at Duke University, his M.A. at the Ohio State University, and his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan. Dr. Cain comes to the Institute from the Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he served as a faculty member and as coordinator of the Higher Education Division.

We anticipate that Professor Cain will contribute considerably to IHE’s graduate programs. He was regarded as an outstanding teacher by his students and colleagues at Illinois, where he was awarded the 2011 Graduate Teaching Award and named to the “List of Teachers Ranked Excellent by their Students.” At Illinois, Professor Cain also co-directed the innovative Ethnography of the University Initiative. That program involves students and faculty at multiple institutions and is oriented toward encouraging and facilitating course-based student research about colleges and universities. He has taught a wide array of courses relating to higher-education policy, history, and organization, and we look forward to his teaching similar courses here in the Institute.

Professor Cain is not only outstanding in the classroom but also superb as an advisor, major professor, and dissertation director. He has chaired eight doctoral committees and has advanced the careers of his students through careful mentoring and engagement with them in joint research projects. Professor Cain is a distinguished scholar whose research focuses on issues involving academic freedom, civil liberties, governance, professionalization, and unionization in the United States. He provides needed historical understanding to some of the most pressing issues facing colleges and universities, including the casualization of academic labor, and challenges to shared governance. His work has appeared in the History of Education Quarterly, Labor History, Perspectives on the History of Higher Education, Teachers College Record, American Journalism, the American Educational History Journal, and other journals. Professor Cain’s first book, Establishing Academic Freedom: Politics, Principles, and the Development of Core Values, was released in September 2012. The book examines the development of academic freedom and tenure in the decades before World War II.

Currently, he is completing work on a research grant from the Spencer Foundation to study post-war unionization in American higher education. Since his recent appointment as senior scholar at the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment, he has turned his attention more explicitly to contemporary concerns regarding the productivity and effectiveness of undergraduate education.

Dr. Cain’s professional service has been extensive. At the University of Illinois, he served as a member or chair on numerous departmental and university governance committees. Nationally, he has been deeply engaged in the broader scholarly community. Professor Cain serves as an associate editor and book review editor for the History of Education Quarterly. In addition, his service to the American Educational Research Association and the Association for the Study of Higher Education, the two major research associations in our field, has included work on numerous committees and frequent service as a reviewer and discussant/facilitator for annual meetings.

In sum, Dr. Cain brings valuable experience and expertise to our faculty ranks and will surely be able to quickly contribute to the Institute’s work. Welcome, Tim!