2009 Carnegie Corporation Academic Leadership Awards Honor Leon Botstein, Scott Cowen, Amy Gutmann, William Kirwan

Four higher education leaders were honored today with a 2009 Carnegie Corporation Academic Leadership Award — Leon Botstein, President of Bard College; Scott Cowen, President of Tulane University; Amy Gutmann, President of the University of Pennsylvania; and, William E. Kirwan, Chancellor of the University System of Maryland. The awards were announced by Vartan Gregorian, President of Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Carnegie Corporation honors these individuals with grants of $500,000 each to be used at their discretion in support of their academic initiatives.

The awards recognize higher education leaders who have demonstrated a commitment to excellence in undergraduate education, both teaching and research; the development of major interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary undergraduate and graduate programs that aim to bridge the gulf between the theoretical and the practical; university outreach to their respective communities and cooperative efforts with business, civic, and education leaders on initiatives such as K-12 school reform; and, international initiatives.

Nominations are solicited from previous winners as well as leaders from several national academic organizations. They are carefully reviewed with particular scrutiny given to candidates' sustained records of innovation and accomplishment.

"Each of these leaders has an academic vision focused on a commitment to excellence. They all see the university as an integral part of their communities, and view the health of K-12 education as central to the future of higher education," said Vartan Gregorian.

"At a time when resources are scarce, we hope these awards will allow outstanding leaders to maintain the momentum of their most critical and innovative educational initiatives," Gregorian added.

The Academic Leadership Award, established in 2005, is an investment in leadership by Carnegie Corporation that builds on the foundation's long tradition of recognizing, developing and sustaining exemplary leadership in higher education. In the Carnegie Quarterly of April 1959, published during the presidency of John Gardner, the strength of the Corporation's grants program was described as seeking to be "as responsive as possible to the expressed concerns of college and university leaders" and to "lend itself to the kinds of giving which will strengthen the institution in terms which the president considers necessary." Hence, this award for academic leadership renews and continues a time-honored Carnegie Corporation tradition in support of advancing excellence in higher education.

2009 ACADEMIC LEADERSHIP AWARD WINNERS:

Leon Botstein has been President of Bard College since 1975. His has been a long-time voice raised in support of innovation in American higher education. Botstein, also Leon Levy Professor in the Arts and Humanities, is the author of Jefferson's Children: Education and the Promise of American Culture and has been a pioneer in linking higher education to public secondary schools. He established an innovative high school-early college program carried out in conjunction with the City of New York, which offers highly motivated students a chance to complete high school and two years of college within four years. The program's schools are tuition-free and mirror the city's economic and racial diversity. Bard's Master of Arts in Teaching program places apprentice teachers in New York City's high-need public schools. Thanks to Botstein, Bard has created notable international education programs including Smolny College, one of post-Soviet Russia's first liberal arts colleges, and the Al-Quds Bard Partnership, the first-ever collaboration between a Palestinian and U.S. institution of higher education to offer dual-degree programs. The International Human Rights Exchange, a program offered by Bard and University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, offers the world's only full-semester, multi-disciplinary program in human rights. President Botstein is also music director and conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the radio orchestra of Israel. His recording of the music of Popov and Shostakovich, with the London Symphony Orchestra, was nominated for a 2006 Grammy Award. His most recent recording is Bruno Walter's Symphony in D Minor with the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Tulane University President Scott Cowen's leadership was fully demonstrated during the post-Katrina rebuilding of New Orleans. While rebuilding Tulane, he has been active in improving the city's K-12 public schools, sustaining its health care system, and championing public service. Less than six months after Hurricane Katrina, which flooded 70 percent of Tulane's uptown campus and all the buildings of its downtown health sciences campus, dispersing faculty, staff and students around the country for an entire semester, Scott Cowen spearheaded an effort to repair the campus in time to welcome 87 percent of its students for classes in January 2006. He led a committee to reform and rebuild the city's failing public school system and, as part of this effort, Tulane chartered a K-12 school in New Orleans and created an Institute for Public Education Initiatives to support the transformation of public education in New Orleans. In addition, President Cowen has served as a commissioner of the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, which continues to play a major role in the rebuilding of Orleans Parish in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Tulane has earned both a community and national reputation as one of the leading institutions of higher education dedicated to public service. At the 2008 ServiceNation Summit, convened by Carnegie Corporation and presented by Time Inc., Cowen reaffirmed Tulane's extensive service programs and announced a new initiative to transform community health in New Orleans while offering unprecedented opportunities for public service to the university's students. Under Cowen's presidency, Tulane has implemented a number of innovative academic and research program initiatives and has more than quadrupled its undergraduate applications, recruiting the highest quality students in the school's history. He is currently chairman of the Southeast Regional Airport Authority, which is charged with turning Louis Armstrong International Airport into a world-class transportation center and a significant economic development powerhouse. Building upon its strengths in civic engagement and public service, Tulane is currently developing a university-wide set of initiatives in social entrepreneurship.

Amy Gutmann, who succeeded Judith Rodin as President of the University of Pennsylvania, launched the Penn Compact in 2004, which has enhanced Penn's global leadership in teaching, research, and professional service, and has made Penn a dynamic agent of civic progress. The Compact has propelled Penn forward in three strategic areas: integrating knowledge, engaging locally and globally, and increasing student access. Under the leadership of President Gutmann, an eminent political scientist and philosopher, Penn has continued to recruit and retain a truly interdisciplinary faculty, and has dramatically increased support for distinguished teacher-scholars who integrate knowledge across multiple disciplines. The Penn Integrates Knowledge Initiative has attracted to Penn some of the finest teacher-scholars who hold joint appointments across Penn's schools, and demonstrate exceptional achievement across disciplines. Gutmann has continued major university-wide initiatives that have transformed West Philadelphia and become a model of community outreach not only in Pennsylvania but also throughout the nation. Penn has had a major impact on K-12 public education through school partnerships that create and foster high-achieving public schools, including collaborations between local elementary schools and Penn's Graduate School of Education. President Gutmann has championed equity in higher education, expanding Penn's outreach efforts and the university's financial aid to make Penn fully affordable to students from all socioeconomic backgrounds. Penn has notably expanded service learning and community partnership initiatives: academically based community service courses have grown by thirty percent since 2004. At the 2008 ServiceNation Summit, Gutmann pledged that Penn will fund an additional 400 community service opportunities over the next four-year period. The new campus master plan of the university, which is the largest employer in Philadelphia, will increase green space by twenty percent and Penn's Climate Action Plan will further reduce the University's carbon footprint. In addition to its ongoing international programs, Penn has established a new partnership with the nation of Botswana to mitigate the devastating effects of HIV and AIDS. The new Penn World Scholars Program broadens the university's international student body, enrolling students from countries in South America, Africa, the Middle East and other parts of the world.

William E. Kirwan, Chancellor of the University System of Maryland (USM), is nationally recognized for his commitment to diversity, efforts to place math and science learning at the center of the educational enterprise and for ensuring America's young people have access to excellent education that is also affordable. Under the Chancellor's direction, USM has made progress in closing the achievement gap in Maryland by initiating efforts to increase college retention and completion rates for lower income and underrepresented students and to help ensure that more Marylanders have access to excellent education that is also affordable. A respected mathematician, Chancellor Kirwan has placed a strong emphasis on increasing the number of graduates in science, technology, engineering and math (so-called STEM disciplines), and thus boost the supply and improve the quality of students entering teaching and STEM fields. Kirwan has reached out aggressively to the broader community to help ensure that his institutions are serving society. In partnership with other universities and organizations such as the Governor's Workforce Investment Board, Kirwan has been deeply involved in harnessing the resources of the state's institutions of higher education to better meet Maryland's workforce and economic development needs. Under Kirwan's leadership, the University System of Maryland has extended its outreach to the Baltimore City Public Schools and other school systems throughout Maryland. His commitment to K-12 education led to the creation of a teacher professional development, recruitment and retention program that has established teacher academies to cultivate future teachers from within the state's K-12 system and to improve student learning. Kirwan has led USM in implementation of its Effectiveness and Efficiency initiative (E&E), developed to build quality and hold down costs. To date, E&E has resulted in more than $100 million in cost savings and emerged as a model for higher education nationwide. In addition, while president of the University of Maryland, College Park, Dr. Kirwan championed the creation of living-learning communities, which link students' curricular and residential experiences to create deeper understanding and integration of classroom material, and which have been recognized as a pioneer and as a national model in this area.

Previous Carnegie Corporation Academic Leadership Awardees are: Henry S. Bienen, President of Northwestern University (2005); Jared Cohon, President of Carnegie Mellon University (2005); Don Randel, then President of the University of Chicago (2005); Matthew Goldstein, Chancellor of the City University of New York (2007); Robert J. Birgeneau, Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley (2008); and Nancy Cantor, Chancellor and President of Syracuse University (2008).

Carnegie Corporation of New York was founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to promote "the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding."