Ehrenberg

The Association for the Study of Higher Education gave ILR School Professor Ronald Ehrenberg its 2013 Howard Bowen Distinguished Career Award in St. Louis, Mo., at its annual conference.

The award is presented annually to “an individual whose professional life has been devoted in substantial part to the study of higher education and whose career has significantly advanced the field,” according to the association.

“It places Ron among the giants in our field,” said University of California, Los Angeles Professor Mitchell Chang, awards committee chair.

Ehrenberg founded the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute (CHERI) 15 years ago. He said his work educating the public is far from over.  “The shift in public consciousness has already occurred. But there’s a lot of confusion out there as to the reasons why tuition keeps going up,” said the author of “Tuition Rising: Why College Costs So Much,” published in 2002.

Including undergraduates and graduate students in his research will continue to be a priority, he said.

“CHERI gave me the chance to extend research opportunities to undergraduate students, and a number of these students have gone on to Ph.D. study in economics, education and public policy,” he said.

Ehrenberg is a SUNY trustee and a fellow of the Society of Labor Economists, the American Educational Research Association, and the Labor and Employment Relations Association. He is also an elected member of the National Academy of Education and a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow at Cornell for his undergraduate teaching.

He received the Jacob Mincer Award for lifetime achievement from the Society of Labor Economists, an honorary doctor of science degree from the State University of New York and an honorary doctorate of humane letters degree from Penn State.

Laura Carver is an intern in the ILR School Communications and Marketing Department.