Barbara Bowman, Ph.D.


Barbara Bowman, president of the Erikson Institue, is an authority on early education. She is one of three faculty members who founded Erikson Institute, a graduate school in child development, in 1966. She has had experience teaching at both preschool and primary levels as well as in colleges and universities. At Erikson Institute, Bowman teaches courses in early childhood education and administration and supervises practice teachers. She is a frequent speaker at conferences and at universities in the United States and abroad. Her specialty areas are early education, cultural diversity, and education of at-risk children.

In addition to teaching, Bowman has directed a wide range of projects, including ones for Head Start teachers, caregivers of infants at-risk for morbidity or mortality, and a Child Development Associate's program on Native American reservations. Her most recent work has been with the Chicago Public Schools where she provided in-service education for teachers in inner city neighborhoods.

Bowman has served on numerous professional boards, including the Family Resource Coalition and the National Association for the Education of Young Children, of which she was President (1980-82). Currently she is on the boards of the Great Books Foundation, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and Roosevelt University. She has served on a variety of professional committees, including the Panel on Day Care Policy for the National Research Council, the Leadership Initiative for the National Black Children Development Institute, the Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties In Young Children for the National Research Council and the Advisory Council on Early Childhood Education of the Illinois State Board of Education. She chaired the Committee on Early Childhood Pedagogy for the National Research Council.