A Conversation with Albert H. Bowker

Abstract

Albert Bowker was born in Winchendon, Massachusetts, on September 8, 1919. He received a B.S. in Mathematics from MIT in 1941, and a Ph.D. in Mathematical Statistics from Columbia University in 1949. He was on the Stanford faculty from 1947 to 1963, serving as founding Chairman of the Statistics Department and Dean of the Graduate Division. In 1963, he became Chancellor of the City University of New York. He returned to California in 1971 as Chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley. In 1980 he was appointed as the first Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education in the newly formed U. S. Department of Education. In 1981 he went to the University of Maryland as founding Dean of the School of Public Affairs and later became Executive Vice President. In September 1986, he returned to the City University of New York, and now serves as Vice-President for Planning of its Research Foundation. In 1961-1962, he was president of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and in 1964, president of the American Statistical Association. Honors include the Frederick Douglass Award of the New York Urban League; the Medal for Distinguished Service of Teachers College, Columbia University; Shewhart Award of the American Society for Quality Control; Berkeley Citation; Distinguished Public Service Award, Department of the Navy; Order De Leopold II; and honorary degrees from the City University of New York, University of the State of New York (Regents), Brandeis University and Antioch University. He has been a member of the boards of various professional and educational organizations including MIT, the University of Haifa and Bennington College. The following conversation took place in his home in Washington, D. C. in October 1986.