Kenneth Prewitt
Carnegie Professor Emeritus of Public Affairs
Personal Details
Focus areas: Writing on the future of scholarly knowledge, public policy
On Leave for the 2022-2023 Academic Year
Kenneth Prewitt is the Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs and Special Advisor to the University President. Prewitt's professional career includes: Director of the United States Census Bureau, Director of the National Opinion Research Center, President of the Social Science Research Council, and Senior Vice President of the Rockefeller Foundation. 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 the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the Russell-Sage Foundation. Among his awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship, honorary degrees from Carnegie Mellon and Southern Methodist University, a Distinguished Service Award from the New School for Social Research, the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit from the Federal Republic of Germany, the Charles E. Merriam Lifetime Career Award, American Political Science Association.
Prewitt holds a BA from Southern Methodist University (1958); MA from Washington University (1959), Harvard Divinity School (1960) as a Danforth fellow; PhD from Stanford University (1963).
His most recent book is What is Your Race? The Census and Our Flawed Efforts to Classify Americans. He has authored or coauthored another half-dozen books and more than 100 articles and book chapters.
Education
- PhD, Stanford University
- MA, Washington University
- BA, Southern Methodist University
- Harvard Divinity School: Danforth fellow
Affiliations
- Lifetime National Associate, NRC/NAS
Research And Publications
In The Media
Former director of the 2000 census Kenneth Prewitt tells says no matter the politicalization of the census, the only thing in charge of the census right now is the virus.
Former director of the United States Census Bureau, Kenneth Prewitt says the census has become politicized and it's important now more than ever for university students to complete the census to empower the communities they live in.
In a new op-ed, Kenneth Prewitt, who was former director of the U.S. Census Bureau between 1998 and 2001, worries this year's Census will see a major undercount thanks to fear-mongering.
Participants might receive one envelope in the mail with two questionnaires, or two envelopes with two questionnaires, and that in either case, it would likely cause confusion and lead to people filling out one but not the other — which could scramble results says Kenneth Prewitt.