THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY-FACULTY ASSEMBLY OF NCSS - A PERSONAL VIEW

CUFA, the College and University Faculty Assembly of the National Coun cil for the Social Studies, was formally established as an NCSS affili ated organization in 1969. Prior to that date, social studies educator s from colleges and universities met at NCSS annual meetings, starting in 1965. This essay is a personal history of events leading to the es tablishment of CUFA and its refereed journal, Theory and Research in S ocial Education. Set in the contexts of the the professionalization of subject field education and the school reform movement of the 1960s, the establishment of an organization for college level social studies educators to communicate about their common interests seemed a natural development. Although there was considerable support in many quarters for such a group, there were tensions and obstacles that created diff iculties. Traditions of internal conflicts between scholars and teache rs, subject specialists and educators, and school and university facul ty members of NCSS created problems in the effort to organize CUFA and publish a research journal.