Tulane President Scott S. Cowen

Just call me Scott

Meet new Tulane President, Scott S. Cowen — whose dynamic yet informal style is changing the way Tulane does business.

Rain had threatened all afternoon, and the skies were turning prematurely dark for early evening as Susan Tucker, archivist and librarian for the Newcomb College Center for Research on Women, sat concentrating at her computer in Caroline Richardson Hall. Everyone else had gone home for the day, no one was expected, and Tucker was taking advantage of the quiet time to catch up on some work.

When the door to the center’s reading room opened, she assumed it was a student. "Can I help you?" she asked automatically, looking up to see a tall, somehow familiar-looking figure.

"Hi, I’m Scott Cowen," the visitor said, and Tucker did a quick double-take as she greeted Tulane University’s president-elect.

Scott S. Cowen succeeded Eamon M. Kelly as Tulane’s 14th president. Cowen, introduced to the Tulane community at a December press conference after his selection by the Tulane Board of Administrators, is the former longtime dean of the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

After his presidency was announced, Cowen and his wife, Marjorie, wasted no time in becoming familiar figures on campus, making monthly treks from Cleveland to New Orleans to meet with university faculty and staff, talk to students over coffee at PJ’s Coffee Shop near the University Center, and stroll the campus in every available spare moment as if to take it in, heart and soul, to learn its nuances, discern its nature, become a part of it.

In the process, people across campus–like Susan Tucker–learned more about their charismatic new president. A booming voice. A hearty laugh. A tireless curiosity. A tall, white-haired figure who has only to walk into a room for people to understand that this is a leader, with a formidable ability to absorb new information, understand it, and respond.

And most, like Tucker, liked what they saw. "I was really impressed," she says. "He asked a lot of questions and showed a lot of interest in what we were doing. I think the fact that he has taken the time to go around the campus and meet people has helped us feel like we know him."

The June morning is already unseasonably, unreasonably hot–even for New Orleans. The heat index hits 100 degrees by mid-morning, and Cowen wastes no time, after good-naturedly enduring an outdoor photo session, in shedding his suit jacket.

Scott Cowen hates jackets, perhaps for the stricture of formality they imply. He prefers shirtsleeves to suit coats, wants to be called "Scott" rather than "Dr. Cowen," and is rumored to occasionally shed his shoes in the office after a long afternoon of meetings.

The shoes are still on at the moment, however, as Cowen reflects on the journey that brought him to the second floor of Gibson Hall on such a muggy June day.

Born 51 years ago in Metuchen, N.J., a working-class town of about 14,000 that qualifies for the oft-repeated moniker of New York City "bedroom community," Cowen was the youngest of two children born to Helen and Stanley Cowen.

He and his sister, Joan, grew up like most American kids of the late 1940s and early 1950s–school in the fall, summer vacations with the family. For the Cowens, vacations meant Long Beach Island, where the young Scott Cowen would go clamming and crabbing and occasionally embark on his father’s small boat.

"Those vacations are the thing I remember most about our childhood," says Joan Cowen Garthwaite, a librarian in Union, N.J. Four years Scott’s senior, Joan describes her brother as "warm and funny and friendly, even as a child."

As a student, Cowen didn’t begin to develop his love of learning and leadership qualities until high school, where he says he "was a competent student, but not a star." Yet, even at Metuchen High School, there were signs: he was involved in student government, played football and, in his senior year, was voted by his peers as "Did Most for MHS While In School."

Also that senior year, Cowen was presented with a choice: an opportunity to study at an Ivy League institution, or a chance to play football on an athletic scholarship for the University of Connecticut after being recruited by legendary coach Lou Holtz. He chose the unconventional route and UConn, where he graduated in 1968. Again, he was involved in athletics, in clubs, in student government–in organizations that developed his leadership abilities. Again, he describes himself as "a good student, but not a great student."

The U.S. Army was soon to change all that. "I think my transformation as a student came after college," Cowen says. It was the heady, frightening days of Vietnam, and the new college graduate was drafted into the infantry. He subsequently volunteered to attend Infantry Officer Candidates’ School, which took him from New Jersey to Missouri to Georgia to Texas and, finally, to Turkey.

"That turned out to be a very critical point in my life," Cowen recalls. "I began to take life much more seriously, began to reflect much more about what I wanted to do with my life." He also began to tap further into his intellectual and academic talents. By the time he completed his tour of service, he was anxious to get to work. He completed a master’s and doctorate in business administration at George Washington University and set off on a career in academia, first at Bucknell University, then, in 1976, at Case Western Reserve University, the school that was to play such a big part in his future. Working up through the faculty ranks at Case Western, Cowen became a full professor of accountancy in 1982, and was named dean of the Weatherhead School of Management in 1984. He subsequently became the Albert J. Weatherhead III Professor of Management in 1994.

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