Distinguished Alumni Award Winner Profile

Howard R. Bowen received his PhD degree in economics from the University of Iowa in 1935 and, 29 years later, was installed as the university's fourteenth president. In the intervening years, he had made his mark as an economist international in stature and served as president of Grinnell College.

During his five-year tenure as president of the UI, Dr. Bowen's influence set in motion the most ambitious and far-reaching physical and intellectual period of growth ever experienced at Iowa. Student enrollment increased more than 50 percent, a $125 million building program was substantially funded and begun, and some 500 members were added to the faculty. Gifts and grants from sources other than state funds and tuition increased from $11.7 million to more than $35 million, and vast expansion in the Health Center Campus, Iowa Center for the Arts, and instruction and research facilities were begun.

Dr. Bowen is currently chairman of the Claremont Graduate School's Department of Economics and recently was named president of the Claremont University Center, Claremont, California.