Viewbooks have been a fixture in American higher education for decades and are an important institutional artifact. They are marketing tool for colleges, but they reveal both implicit and explicit perceptions of self that are supposed to attract a narrowly-defined and specific group of students. A college\u2019s recruitment and marketing is based on the school\u2019s assertion of qualities that it claims for itself. How can they attract students and maintain public prestige? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2008, Matthew Hartley and Christopher Morphew, Associate Professors of Education at the University of Pennsylvania graduate school of education, analyzed the content of 48 higher education viewbooks from around the nation. Through systematically gathering both qualitative and quantitative data, they identified particular themes among all of the books. They first emphasize the unrealistic, idyllic haven that nearly every viewbook portrayed and identify six thematic areas that are featured in all of the viewbooks which include campus features, academics, co-curricular activities, admissions, value of education, and purpose of education. Harley and Morphew suggest that there are not major differences in the marketing of liberal arts colleges because they are prescribed to the liberal arts college manifesto. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Inspired by Harley and Morphews research, I decided to examine Colorado College viewbooks from its creation in 1874 to the present. To have a clear sense of place at Colorado College, I have to ask myself why am I here and what audience is Colorado College reaching for? The viewbooks are a marketing tool for the college, but they tell Colorado College\u2019s history of what they want to represent and who they want to attract. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I looked at every viewbook from 1874 to 2019 that was available in Special Collections of Tutt Library. There was a lack of viewbooks between 1950 and 1980 because people have not donated viewbooks for the years for unknown reasons. My methodology for collecting data on the viewbooks was not as precise as Harley and Morphew and clear flaw in my research. I looked at all the viewbooks and focused on the first few pages of every viewbook. I examined the themes that Harley and Morphew articulated and expand on them to relate more personally to Colorado College. I scanned and displayed a fraction of the viewbook pages on this website because the scope of the project is too large for my given time constraint.
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Viewbooks have been a fixture in American higher education for decades and are an important institutional artifact. They are marketing tool for colleges, but they reveal both implicit and explicit perceptions of self that are supposed to attract a narrowly-defined and specific group of students. A college\u2019s recruitment and marketing is based on the school\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloradocollege.website\/CCviewbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloradocollege.website\/CCviewbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloradocollege.website\/CCviewbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloradocollege.website\/CCviewbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloradocollege.website\/CCviewbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/coloradocollege.website\/CCviewbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32,"href":"https:\/\/coloradocollege.website\/CCviewbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions\/32"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloradocollege.website\/CCviewbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}