Readin' + Writin' for the Hard-Hat Crowd explores the history of an urban public university
from its conception in 1964 to the dawn of the twenty-first century. The reader views this
place in time through the lens of the evolving nature of «freshman English» an introductory
curriculum that began as four semesters of Great Books. The author herself among those once
labeled «the hard-hat crowd» received an undergraduate education similar to that experienced
by her contemporaries at elite private colleges. Yet while this school once considered a poor
man's Harvard was founded with a mission to provide academic equity the curriculum evolved to
one that responded to pressure for relevancy and practicality.
