{{Short description|American academic}} {{about|the Columbia University professor|the Bloomberg Radio reporter|Ken Prewitt}} {{Infobox officeholder |image = Kenneth_Prewitt.jpg |image_size = |caption = |birth_name = Carl Kenneth Prewitt Jr.<ref name=Hearing/> |birth_date = {{birth date and age|1936|3|16}} |birth_place = Alton, Illinois, U.S. | office = 20th Director of the U.S. Census Bureau | president = Bill Clinton | term_start = 1998 | term_end = 2001 | preceded = Martha Farnsworth Riche | succeeded = C. Louis Kincannon |party = |education = {{indented plainlist|1= *Southern Methodist University *Washington University in St. Louis *Stanford University}} |spouse ={{marriage|Susan Mullin Vogel|1995}} |children = }} '''Kenneth Prewitt''' (born March 16, 1936) an American academic who is the Carnegie Professor of Social Affairs at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://new.sipa.columbia.edu/faculty/kenneth-prewitt|title=Kenneth Prewitt &#124; Columbia SIPA|access-date=2013-11-15|archive-date=2015-04-09|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150409231634/http://new.sipa.columbia.edu/faculty/kenneth-prewitt|url-status=dead}}</ref> where he is also director of the Scholarly Knowledge Project. He was Director of the United States Census Bureau from 1998 to 2001.

== Biography ==

Prewitt was born March 16, 1936, in Alton, Illinois. He graduated from Alton High School in 1954 and then attended DePauw University for one year before transferring to Southern Methodist University.<ref name=Hearing>{{cite news |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hREUDmm9o3QC&pg=PA56 |title=Nominations of Robert M. (Mike) Walker and Kenneth Prewitt: Hearing Before the Committee on Governmental Affairs, United States Senate, One Hundred Fifth Congress, Second Session |volume=105 |issue=720 |pages=56–58 |date=1998 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |location=Washington, D.C. |isbn=978-0-16-057793-2 |access-date=March 8, 2022}}</ref> Prewitt received a B.A. in 1958 from Southern Methodist; a M.A. in 1959 from Washington University in St. Louis, and a 1963 Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University with a thesis "Career patterns and role-orientations: an inquiry into the political behavior of city councilmen"<ref>[http://www.worldcat.org/title/career-patterns-and-role-orientations-an-inquiry-into-the-political-behavior-of-city-councilmen/oclc/663758499&referer=brief_results, WorldCat record]</ref> and was a Danforth Fellow at the Harvard Divinity School from 1959 to 1960.<ref name=Hearing/>

He was appointed Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago in 1965, rising to the rank of first Associate and then Full Professor. From 1998 to 2000 he was the Director of the Census Bureau from 1998 to 2001<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.census.gov/dmd/www/prewittbio.html |title=Biography of Census Bureau Director Kenneth Prewitt |access-date=December 7, 2017 |archive-date=September 24, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924010515/http://www.census.gov/dmd/www/prewittbio.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> and Director of the National Opinion Research Center. He has also served as president of the Social Science Research Council, as senior vice president of the Rockefeller Foundation, and as Dean of the Graduate School at the New School University. Since 2015, he has been the president of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

Prewitt has two children by his first marriage, and is now married to Susan Mullin Vogel, an art historian, museum curator and leader, and filmmaker.

== Honors ==

He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and the Russell Sage Foundation. He has received a Guggenheim fellowship and a Lifetime Career Award from the American Political Science Association,. He also has received honorary degrees from Southern Methodist University and from Carnegie Mellon University.{{Citation needed|reason=Reliable source needed for the whole section|date=September 2015}}

== Publications ==

=== Books ===

*Kenneth Prewitt. ''What is Your Race? The Flawed Effort of the Census to Classify Americans'' Princeton University Press, 2013. {{ISBN|9780691157030}} According to WorldCat, the book is held in 207 libraries<ref>[https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/811778507 WorldCat item record]</ref> *Kenneth Prewitt; Thomas A Schwandt; Miron L Straf, eds.. ''Using Science as Evidence in Public Policy'' National Research Council of the National Academies, 2012 {{ISBN|9780309261616}}. [http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13460 free download] *Kenneth Prewitt, ed. ''The federal statistical system : its vulnerability matters more than you think '' (''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 631'') Sage Foundation, 2010/ {{ISBN|9781412992589}} *Kenneth Prewitt. ''The Hard Count: The Political and Social Challenges of Census Mobilization'' Russell Sage Foundation, 2010 *Kenneth Prewitt., ed. ''The Legitimacy of Philanthropic Foundations: United States and European Perspectives.'' New York: R. Sage Foundation, 2006 *Prewitt, Kenneth. ''The Recruitment of Political Leaders: A Study of Citizen-Politicians.'' Westport Conn: Greenwood Press, 1981 {{ISBN|9780313227448}} *Prewitt, Kenneth, and Sidney Verba. ''An Introduction to American Government.'' New York: Harper & Row, 1974. 9780060452841; 2nd ed, 1977; 3rd ed. 1979; 4th ed. 1983 (this and subsequent eds. with Robert Holt Salisbury); 5th ed. 1987; 6th ed. 1991. **Abridged version publ.as ''Principles of American Government '' 1975. *Prewitt, Kenneth, and Alan Stone. ''The Ruling Elites: Elite Theory, Power, and American Democracy.'' New York: Harper & Row, 1973. According to WorldCat, the book is held in 631 libraries<ref>[https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/600280 WorldCat item record]</ref> *Prewitt, Kenneth.'' Education and Political Values: An East African Case Study''. Nairobi: East African Pub. House, 1971 OCLC 643528

=== Other publications ===

He has also published 100 articles and book chapters.

== References ==

{{Reflist}}

== External links == *[https://new.sipa.columbia.edu/faculty/kenneth-prewitt Official CV at Columbia] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150409231634/http://new.sipa.columbia.edu/faculty/kenneth-prewitt |date=2015-04-09 }} *{{C-SPAN|55894}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Prewitt, Kenneth}} Category:1936 births Category:Living people Category:People from Alton, Illinois Category:DePauw University alumni Category:Southern Methodist University alumni Category:Washington University in St. Louis alumni Category:Stanford University alumni Category:Columbia University faculty Category:Columbia School of International and Public Affairs faculty Category:University of Chicago faculty Category:The New School faculty Category:Social Science Research Council Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Category:Clinton administration personnel Category:Harvard Fellows