About

Henry Rosovsky was born in the Free City of Danzig in 1927. He received his A.B. degree in 1949 from the College of William and Mary and his Ph.D. degree from Harvard in 1959. He taught economics, history, and Japanese and Korean studies at the University of California at Berkeley until 1965. Since then, his service at Harvard has been lifelong, holding numerous positions including Professor of Economics from 1965 to 1996, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences from 1973 to 1991, and acting president of Harvard briefly in 1984 and 1987. His primary fields of interest are Japan and higher education, with research topics focusing on professional ethics as applied to university faculties. Professor Rosovsky is the author of many articles and books on topics such as Japanese economic growth, capital formation in Japan, and the functioning of the Japanese economy, as well as on higher education. He has received many achievement awards and honorary degrees, and has been a member of numerous professional associations, advisory boards, and corporate boards. Additionally, he has taught as a visiting professor in Japan and Israel and has worked as a consultant with the United States government, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, and UNESCO.

Research topics

• Political science
• Economics
• Computer science
• History
• Economic growth

Selected publications

• FOREWORD

  Harvard University Asia Center eBooks · 2017-08-22

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Looking Back on the Lessons of "Higher Education and Developing Countries: Peril and Promise": Perspectives on China and India

  Open Access Journals at BC (Boston College) · 2016-10-01

  preprintSenior author

  In 2000, Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise was published. This report, cosponsored by The World Bank and UNESCO, came at a time of transition in higher education worldwide and helped shape higher education policy and thinking in several developing countries. This article looks at some of the main arguments in Peril and Promise. It focuses particularly on how two key countries, China and India, have developed in light of the key recommendations in Peril and Promise.

  Publisher

• Looking Back on the Lessons of “Higher Education and Developing Countries: Peril and Promise”— Perspectives on China and India

  International Journal of African Higher Education · 2016-12-22 · 20 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  In 2000, the independent Task Force on Higher Education and Society published “Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise” with the support of the World Bank and UNESCO. The report highlighted the actual and potential contribution of quality higher education to social, economic, and political development. It identified key obstacles to realizing that potential, and various strategies and tools for circumventing those obstacles. “Peril and Promise”’s most important contribution was to relegitimize higher education in the development dialogue—at a time when donor and governments attention and funding focused primarily on primary and secondary education: “Education for All.” It articulated several key recommendations to the higher education sector in developing countries, faced with dramatic massification. This article aims to revisit the main messages of the report, through the lens of a comparative case study of recent changes in higher education in China and India.---En 2000, le groupe indépendant de travail sur l’Enseignement Supérieur et la Société publia « L’Enseignement supérieur dans les pays en voie de développement : Péril et promesse » avec le soutien de la Banque Mondiale et de l’UNESCO. Le rapport mit en valeur la véritable contribution qu’un enseignement supérieur de qualité pourrait apporter au développement social, économique et politique. Ses auteurs identifièrent les obstacles majeurs à la réalisation de ce potentiel, et les stratégies variées ainsi que les outils nécessaires pour contourner ces obstacles. La plus importante contribution de « Péril et Promesse » fut de légitimer à nouveau la place de l’enseignement supérieur au sein du discours sur le développement, à une époque où l’attention des donateurs et des gouvernements, ainsi que les financements, se dirigeaient essentiellement vers l’enseignement primaire et secondaire, à l’instar du projet « Education pour tous ». Le rapport articulait plusieurs recommandations clés pour le secteur de l’enseignement supérieur dans les pays en voie de développement, en proie à une massification dramatique. Cet article a pour objectif de revisiter les principaux messages de ce rapport à travers le prisme d’une étude de cas comparative des récents changements observés dans l’enseignement supérieur en Chine et en Inde.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Looking Back on the Lessons of 'Higher Education and Developing Countries: Peril and Promise': Perspectives on China and India

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2016-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Some Nonpecuniary Challenges to Research Universities

  International Higher Education · 2015-03-15

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  International Higher Education (IHE) publishes insightful, informed, and high-quality commentary and analysis on trends and issues of importance to higher education systems, institutions, and stakeholders around the world.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• New Report on Higher Education in Developing Countries

  International Higher Education · 2015-03-25

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  International Higher Education (IHE) publishes insightful, informed, and high-quality commentary and analysis on trends and issues of importance to higher education systems, institutions, and stakeholders around the world.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Research Universities: American Exceptionalism?

  Voprosy Obrazovaniya/ Educational Studies Moscow · 2014-06-28 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  At the top of the higher education pyramid in the United States we find the public and private research universities with their special role of creating and maintaining knowledge, training graduate students in arts and sciences and professional schools, and offering a liberal education to undergraduates. There are about 125 diverse universities that fit this description. These universities play a less singular role in undergraduate education. All the institutions at the top of the American educational pyramid share six characteristics closely associated with high quality: shared governance, academic freedom, merit selection, significant human contact, preservation of culture, nonprofit status. Many academics will consider a listing of these characteristics individually familiar, obvious, and of little interest. But the characteristics of quality are almost never considered as a system even though the absence of any one of them will affect the integrity and quality of a research university. On the other hand none of these characteristics, singly or as a group, make disruptive change impossible.

  PublisherDOI

• Research Universities: American Exceptionalism?

  International Higher Education · 2014-05-12 · 8 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Henry Rosovsky, Harvard's longtime Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, describes six key characteristics present in America's top tier of research universities: shared governance, academic freedom, merit selection, significant human contact, preservation of culture, and nonprofit status. Although often discussed individually, these six characteristics of quality are rarely discussed as a system and, contrary to a longstanding historical tradition, their presence does not preclude innovation and change. The author questions whether today's boards of trustees, the court of last resort in American higher education, are prepared to uphold the key characteristics of quality.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Unlocking the Benefits of Higher Education through Appropriate Governance

  2011-07-21 · 2 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Higher Education in Developing Countries

  Springer international handbooks of education · 2008-01-18 · 61 citations

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Kazushi Ohkawa

  28 shared

• David E. Bloom

  Harvard University

  17 shared

• Philip G. Altbach

  14 shared

• David S. Landes

  Mercedes-Benz (Germany)

  11 shared

• Fritz Redlich

  10 shared

• Rodman W. Paul

  Yale University

  9 shared

• Ralph W. Hidy

  9 shared

• Arthur M. Johnson

  9 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Economics

  Harvard University

  1962

• B.A., Economics

  University of Chicago

  1957