Shapiro, Harold
SHAPIRO, HAROLD
SHAPIRO, HAROLD (1935– ), U.S. scholar and administrator. Born in Montreal, Shapiro held dual American and Canadian citizenship. He earned his bachelor's degree from McGill University in 1956 and his Ph.D. in economics from Princeton in 1964. Shapiro joined the faculty of the University of Ann Arbor in 1964 as an assistant professor, becoming an associate professor in 1967. In 1970 he was named a full professor of economics and became chair of the department of economics in 1977. He served as a research scientist at the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations and at the Institute of Public Policy Studies. His fields of interest included econometrics, mathematical economics, science policy, the evolution of higher education, and money and banking. Shapiro published numerous articles in academic journals, including the International Economic Review and Journal of Comparative Economics, and he wrote and edited several books, including Tradition and Change: Perspectives on Education and Public Policy (1987).
Shapiro was named vice president for academic affairs of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1977, and he also served as chairman of the executive board of the University of Michigan hospitals. In 1980 he was elected president of the university and chairman of its board of regents. In 1988 he was named Princeton University's 18th president, the first Jew to serve in that office and he served in that capacity until his retirement in 2001. He also held a faculty appointment as professor of economics and public affairs; he became professor emeritus.
Shapiro served as a member of the Bretton Woods Committee, the American Philosophical Society, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Government-University-Industry-Research Roundtable of the National Academy of Sciences. He was a member of the presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology from 1990 to 1992, and he chaired the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Employer-Based Health Benefits. In 1996 he was appointed by President Bill Clinton to chair the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, which issued the report Cloning Human Beings in June 1997.
Shapiro served as a trustee of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Universities Research Association, the Educational Testing Service, and the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center. He also served on the board of directors of the Dow Chemical Company and the American Council on Education. He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
[Dorothy Bauhoff (2nd ed.)]