Bowen honored for groundbreaking book
William Bowen, president of Princeton from 1972 to 1988, has been selected to receive the 2001 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Education.
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In "The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences on Considering Race in College and University Admissions" (Princeton University Press, 1998), Bowen and Bok studied the academic, employment and life histories of more than 90,000 students who attended 28 academically selective colleges and universities throughout the country. They then systematically addressed many of the issues raised by critics of race-sensitive policies, looking at each supposition and analyzing the data to determine its validity.
Bowen and Bok tackled issues such as drop-out rates and demoralization of minority students attending institutions under selective admissions guidelines, the effect selective admissions has on diversity and racial tension, and alternatives to race-sensitive admissions.
"Bowen and Bok have made an unparalleled contribution to informing the debate regarding race-sensitive admissions policies," said the Grawemeyer selection committee. "In an area in which discussions often get bogged down in a wind tunnel of rhetoric, this work represents a guiding light."
The two will share the $200,000 award, one of the largest in the field of education. Bowen is donating his share to Morehouse College in honor of Henry Drewry, former director of Princeton's Teacher Preparation Program and former senior adviser at the Mellon Foundation who started the Mellon Minority Undergraduate Fellowship Program.
The awards in music composition, education, ideas improving world order, religion and psychology were established by the late Charles Grawemeyer, a philanthropist and Louisville alumnus, to recognize powerful ideas or creative works in the arts and sciences.
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