The Princeton Years, 1963-91

Abstract

This chapter describes how W. Arthur Lewis joined the faculty of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Although Lewis may well have been ailing physically when he arrived in Princeton, he plunged into his teaching and research with unusual energy. From the outset, he offered graduate seminars on economic development jointly in the Woodrow Wilson School and the economics department. The usual format that he chose was a graduate overview course on economic development followed by a team-taught seminar dealing with economic development in selected country studies. Lewis chose the continent of Africa for his country studies, while his colleagues treated the countries of Latin America and Asia. As the custom at Princeton was for all faculty to do undergraduate teaching, Lewis experimented with various undergraduate courses, even trying his hand at one of the large introductory economics lecture courses, where he was not at his best or comfortable. He eventually developed a standard undergraduate lecture course on economic development.