William g bowen biography

American economist and academic administrator

For other people with the same name, see William Bowen (disambiguation).

William Gordon Bowen (BOH-ən; October 6, 1933 – October 20, 2016)^[1] was an American academic who served as the president emeritus of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, serving as its president from 1988 to 2006.^[2] From 1972 until 1988, he was the president of Princeton University. Bowen founded the digital library, JSTOR.

Early life

Bowen was born on October 6, 1933, in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was the son of Albert and Bernice Bowen. Albert Bowen was a calculator salesman and Bernice Bowen worked as a dorm mother at the University of Cincinnati.^[3][4] Bowen graduated from Wyoming High School. He attended Denison University, where he played championship tennis and was initiated into the Sigma Chi fraternity. He graduated from Denison in 1955 and from Princeton University in 1958,