CSHPE 50th: The Distinguished Scholar Lecture Series: Public Policy Lecture
Public Policy Lecture
Thursday, October 5, 2006
Two Distinguished Scholars have been named for the Public Policy Lecture, Dr. Michael S. McPherson and Dr. Morton Owen Schapiro. Dr. McPherson is President of The Spencer Foundation, and Dr. Schapiro is President of Williams College.
Prior to joining The Spencer Foundation in 2003, Dr. McPherson served as President of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota for seven years. A nationally known economist whose expertise focuses on the interplay between education and economics, McPherson spent the 22 years prior to his Macalester presidency as professor of economics, chairman of the Economics Department, and dean of faculty at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he first collaborated with Dr. Schapiro.
Morton Owen Schapiro became the President of Williams College in 2000. Before assuming the presidency, he served as Chair of the Department of Economics, Dean of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and Vice President for Planning at the University of Southern California. Prior to his tenure at USC he was a member of the Williams College faculty from 1980 to 1991, as Professor of Economics and as Assistant Provost. Dr. Schapiro is among the nation’s premier authorities on the economics of higher education, with particular expertise in the area of college financing and affordability, and on trends in educational costs and student aid.
Drs. McPherson and Schapiro are long-time colleagues and collaborators. They are widely regarded as experts on the economics of higher education, and utilize their training as economists and experience as both university executives and policy analysts to investigate topics related to financial aid policy and the affordability of higher education in the U.S. Schapiro and McPherson each have substantial publications individually, and have co-authored several articles, chapter and books, including The Student Aid Game: Meeting Need and Rewarding Talent in American Higher Education, and Paying the Piper: Productivity, Incentives and Financing in Higher Education (which they co-edited with Gordon Winston), which was published by the University of Michigan Press.
