Going public, philosophically: A history and phenomenology of public formation at Rutgers University-New Brunswick (New Jersey)

On one hand, public higher education in the U.S. has consistently served as the institutional incarnation of the American Dream; on the other, support for it is declining in the face of an academic/civic disconnect, changing demographics, trends towards privatization. These are problems of philosophy: they require us to reconsider the meanings of public higher education. A review of the literature reveals limitations of legislative or programmatic approaches to public higher education originating in the university or the state. This study draws on historical and phenomenological data and the philosophy of Habermas, Dewey, and Greene in a hybrid research design to examine public formation---circulation of shared meaning---at Rutgers University. Historical documents were analyzed intertextually with phenomenological analysis of interview data. The study found that although public education is described in official documents in terms of institutions and discourse, publics are also characterized in terms of interpersonal processes. Those interviewed placed greater emphasis on local non-discursive interactions as the central meaning of public higher education. This re-reading suggests not a decline but a shift in meaning of "publicness": public higher education is created and recreated locally through the communicative acts and practices of multiple publics. Reengaged by those publics; public universities are poised to become nodes of interaction for a society of teaming on the margins of the institution. Future qualitative research can illuminate the individual and social meanings we give to public higher education through analysis of our discourse and practices; such understanding is essential if we are to identify the shared consequences around which we might build changing publics through which our public universities---whatever configuration they may take in the coming years---will thrive.