About
Mission
History
The Phillip J. Bowman Center for Scholarship to Practice (Bowman Center) was established during a pivotal moment in higher education. In 2003, the University of Michigan’s admissions practices came under national scrutiny in the landmark Supreme Court cases Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger. These cases affirmed the educational value of a diverse student body and underscored the importance of institutional efforts to ensure broad participation in higher education.
In the wake of these decisions, it became clear that scholarship and leadership in this space needed sustained attention — not only on campus, but across the country. Founded in 2005, the Bowman Center was created to support this work by connecting and catalyzing scholars and practitioners committed to addressing complex social issues related to identity, inequality, power, and representation.
From the beginning, the Bowman Center has served as a national hub for collaboration, knowledge exchange, and leadership development, and has hosted initiatives of various scholarly foci, including anti-racism, philanthropy, and public scholarship. Through faculty fellowship programs, research initiatives, national convenings, and strategic partnerships, the center has fostered scholarship with the potential to drive institutional and societal change. Our directors have each shaped the Bowman Center's vision in meaningful ways, helping to build a strong foundation for advancing knowledge and practice in higher education and beyond.
We are proud of our history, and we view this work as ongoing. The challenges we face today require bold ideas, critical inquiry, and collective effort. The Bowman Center remains committed to supporting the people and scholarship that move our institutions — and our society — toward greater equity and justice.
Values
- A holistic account of identities and experiences are necessary for excellence.
- We believe in the value of scholarly rigor, while acknowledging there are multiple criteria by which to judge this concept.
- We seek to design programs and approaches that are models for others through the pursuit of best practices and scholarly/research queries, while building on the existing literature.
- We value and support cutting-edge and innovative research and scholarship in the application to social issues.
- We value formal and informal internal and external collaborations, with the understanding that a variety of perspectives enhance the quality of our work, and with the expectation that our foundation is a catalyst for future programs, projects, and initiatives.
- We strive for equity by seeking to create spaces where all have an equal seat at the table.
- We have compassion in that we treat each situation with kindness and compassion by recognizing that no one is perfect, just that we should all try our best.
- We believe in inclusion, so we ensure that all with whom we work not only feel included but are included.
- We seek to be humble in our pursuit of practices and research queries around issues of social justice, and understand that we do not have all the answers, but we know how to work together to get the answers.
- We self-reflect and recognize our own positionality as we approach our work and partnerships.
- We understand that people operate under different frames and perspectives and have different motivations.
- We promote continuous learning for our students, staff, postdocs, and affiliated faculty.
- We acknowledge, promote, and build on the work and scholarship of those that have gone before us.
- We recognize that people come into contact with us at different stages in their education and world understanding.
- We act as mentors to students, encouraging them to enrich the lives of others and to develop and we empower them as future leaders and critical thinkers.
- We seek to demonstrate and build upon cutting edge rigorous research, supported by scholars from around the country.
- We explicitly name social issues and challenges, no matter how uncomfortable it may be to do so. We don’t mask the importance of an issue that impacts any of our communities in order to help others avoid guilt or feel better about it.
- We give weight and value to the experienced history of discrimination in an effort to learn from past actions, including mistakes.
- We conduct our work with the highest of ethical standards.
- In scholarship and practice, we always seek to view individuals in their full humanity.
- We support others who have the courage to speak their truths in all environments, and we use our positionality to affect positive outcomes of that courage.
- We provide space, opportunity, and support for people to be courageous in numerous ways.
- We encourage others to see that more "invisible" forms of activism (scholarly pursuits) are acts of courage.
- We recognize the courage to develop innovative and critical theories, scholarship, programs, and practices, and networks that counter prevailing frameworks, narratives, and practices.
- We believe in sharing research and best practices widely, ensuring full access and empowering others to implement evidence-based approaches.