Donald Cowan

Donald Andrew Cowan (May 26, 1914 – 2002) was an American educator and nuclear physicist. He was president of the University of Dallas 1962–1977, where he retired as a University Professor. He was particularly known for his work with his wife, literary critic and teacher Louise Cowan, to grow the University of Dallas and to center its programs around a traditionalist core curriculum focused on great books.

Early life and education Cowan was born May 26, 1914, in Fort Worth, Texas. After graduating high school during the Great Depression and at first unable to attend college, he studied radar for the US Air Force. He married Louise Cowan in 1939. and next he earned his PhD in physics from Vanderbilt University in 1951. In 1953, he and his wife then came back to Fort Worth, Texas for her to teach at Texas Christian University. He became president of the University of Dallas in 1962 and served in the position through 1977, retiring as a University Professor. He succeeded Robert J. Morris (president 1960–1962). In this role, he and his wife transformed the curriculum of the university to focus on a core of great books education. and then by medievalist John R. Sommerfeldt (1978–1980). Cowan was allegedly forced out and made to take a leave of absence in 1977 after disagreements with university board members associated with Texas Instruments (TI) about the importance of distance learning;

After his term as president, he and his wife founded the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture.

Personal life, death, and legacy Cowan married Mary Louise Shillingburg, later well known as Louise Cowan, in 1939 in Fort Worth, Texas.

He developed Alzheimer's disease in the 1990s and died in Dallas of complications of the disease in 2002. and he is the namesake of the University of Dallas Donald A. Cowan Physics Institute.

Selected works

Unbinding Prometheus: Education for the Coming Age. 1988. The Dallas Institute Publications.