A while back, I was discussing the history of higher education with a tenured historian of European thought.  I was talking about the rise of co-education in the United States in the 19thcentury, a history beautifully explored by Andrea Turpin, as one of America’s signal contributions to higher education.  My interlocutor made two startling claims in response.  First, he claimed that the University of Bologna had been from the beginning a co-educational university.  (Sorry, Charlie, but the occasional appearance of an utterly exceptional “woman worthy” in the university’s annals every two or three centuries does not a “co-educational university” make.)  Read more