How a visionary university and foundation president tackled some of the thorniest problems facing higher education
As provost and then president of Princeton University, William G. Bowen (1933–2016) took on the biggest and most complex challenges confronting higher education: cost disease, inclusion, affirmative action, college access, and college completion. Later, as president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, he took his vision for higher education-and the strategies for accomplishing that vision-to a larger arena. Along the way, he wrote a series of influential books, including the widely read The Shape of the River (coauthored with Derek Bok), which documented the success of policies designed to increase racial diversity at elite institutions. In Changing the Game, drawing on deep archival research and hundreds of interviews, Nancy Weiss Malkiel argues that Bowen was the most consequential higher education leader of his generation.
Bowen, who became Princeton's president in 1972 at the age of 38, worked to shore up the university's financial stability, implement coeducation, and create a more inclusive institution. Breaking through the traditional Ivy League demographics of white, Protestant, and male, he embraced equal access in admissions for women and men and actively sought to enroll Black, Hispanic, and Asian American students. To "increase the intellectual muscle of the faculty," he used targeted recruiting and enforced higher scholarly standards. In 1988, Bowen moved on to Mellon, where, among many other accomplishments, he developed digital research tools, most notably JSTOR, and promoted racial diversity through the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship. Attacking problems with tenacity, insight, and deep knowledge, Bowen showed the world of higher education how a visionary leader can transform an institution. Nancy Weiss Malkiel is professor emeritus of history at Princeton University, where she was the longest-serving dean of the college, overseeing the university's undergraduate academic program for twenty-four years. She is the author of "Keep the Damned Women Out": The Struggle for Coeducation (Princeton), among other books. "Malkiel captures Bowen perfectly. An honest appraisal of a remarkable man."-Lawrence S. Bacow, president emeritus of Harvard University
"Malkiel writes a compelling, wonderful biography of perhaps the leading educator of our time. Gracefully written, this much-needed book reveals much to those who knew Bowen and his work best, and to those who need to learn about him."-Jonathan R. Cole, Columbia University
"Malkiel's biography is a captivating and detailed account of William Bowen's remarkable impact on the higher education landscape. Malkiel doesn't shy away from the controversies, even as she makes a compelling argument for why Bowen is the most influential leader and scholar of higher education in the last fifty years."-Jennifer Morton, author of Moving Up Without Losing Your Way
"A monumental study of a monumental man."-Morton Schapiro, president emeritus of Northwestern University
"A fascinating life story that serves as a compelling case study in leadership. Malkiel admirably integrates Bowen's personal story, which is an extraordinary American tale."-Daniel H. Weiss, president and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art "
Malkiel has written an important and needed book, one that deserves to be widely read within the sector and beyond - when the demands on complicated institutions like research universities are nearly impossible to meet, and their leaders are challenged to raise funds, provide wise governance, scan and feed social media, and fulfill endless political and community agendas."---Howard Gardner, Harvard Magazine
