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Dr. Louise S. Cowan has devoted her professional life to the study and teaching of
literature and to the creation of institutions of liberal education. In 1991,
President George Bush bestowed upon Dr. Cowan the nation's highest award for
achievement in the humanities, the Charles Frankel Prize.
Dr. Cowan's dedication to the University of Dallas resides at the heart of her long
career in education. Beginning in 1959, she and her husband Dr. Donald Cowan,
worked to transform a diocesan college of modest ambitions into one of the most
prestigious Catholic universities in the nation. As chair of the English Department
and later as dean of the Braniff Graduate School, she devised a curriculum, with
literature at its center and classic texts as its primary content, that is still
in place today and acclaimed for its advancement of learning in the tradition
of liberal education.
Throughout the years, her wide-ranging literary interests have included Shakespeare,
Dostoevsky, Faulkner, Caroline Gordon, and many other writers both ancient and
modern. Dr. Cowan has written or edited several books and is the author of numerous
articles on literature and culture. She is the recipient of many awards and honors
in Dallas and throughout the nation for her contributions to education and her
excellence in teaching, most recently as a Laura Bush honoree in October, 2001,
for the establishment of The Teachers Institute at the Dallas Institute of Humanities
and Culture.
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