Nancy Weiss Malkiel, Changing the Game: William G. Bowen and the Challenges of American Higher Education Princeton University Press, 2023. 427 pp.
Year: 2026
Type: book-review
Abstract: What does it mean that the two American university presidents of the past seventyfive years who made the greatest impact on higher education policy were both labor economists?Nancy Weiss Malkiel does not address that question in her well-written biography of William G. Bowen, but she makes a strong case that Bowen succeeded fellow labor economist Clark Kerr in the role of chief statesman for and analyst of American higher education.There are several similarities between the two leaders.Each grew up in modest circumstances and attended a selective liberal arts college (Swarthmore for Kerr, Denison for Bowen).Each began a lengthy tenure in campus leadership at a young age and concluded it while still in his fifties-Kerr as chancellor of UC Berkeley (1952)(1953)(1954)(1955)(1956)(1957)(1958) and president of the University of California (1958)(1959)(1960)(1961)(1962)(1963)(1964)(1965)(1966)(1967), Bowen as provost (1967)(1968)(1969)(1970)(1971)(1972) and president (1972)(1973)(1974)(1975)(1976)(1977)(1978)(1979)(1980)(1981)(1982)(1983)(1984)(1985)(1986)(1987)(1988) of Princeton University.Each moved immediately from his university presidency to a position of extra-university leadership with great influence on higher education-Kerr as head of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education (1967)(1968)(1969)(1970)(1971)(1972)(1973) and the Carnegie Council on Policy Studies in Higher Education (1973)(1974)(1975)(1976)(1977)(1978)(1979)(1980), Bowen as president of the Mellon Foundation (1988)(1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006).Finally, Kerr and Bowen each wrote a number of acclaimed books on higher education, doing so right up to the end of his long life.Kerr and Bowen were personally connected through Frederick Harbison, who was one of Kerr's collaborators on the landmark study of worldwide economic development, Industrialism and Industrial Man (1960), at the same time he was one of Bowen's teachers while the latter was in the economics doctoral program at Princeton.These scholars were among the earliest to make higher education a subject of economic analysis.Malkiel quotes a letter of recommendation Harbison wrote while Bowen was a graduate student: "At his stage of development, Bowen is the best student I have ever had the opportunity to teach" (p.29).In another recommendation during Bowen's first year on the Princeton faculty, Harbison wrote, "He will probably turn up as one of our leading university presidents in the next twenty years" (p.31).
Source: History of Education Quarterly
Author: Ethan Schrum
Institution: Azusa Pacific University
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W7154308543
Cites:
Cited by:
Related to: