Why Innovation Fails

Arthur Levine is determined to see the teaching profession become stronger than ever. He is a firm believer in the training of teachers in a way that helps them in the classroom, practical methods of improving their abilities in communicating and instructing the students rather than having them take school administration-type courses.

Levine was born on June 16, 1948, in New York City, the son of Meyer and Katherine (Kalman) Levine. He received his B.A. in Biology from Brandeis University in 1970 and then served as director of the Center for Undergraduate Curriculum Evaluation there and as a Boston public school substitute teacher. Lecture work at the State University of New York at Buffalo followed, along with a Ph.D. in 1976 from the same school.

After finishing his education, Arthur Levine headed to the West Coast, serving as a senior fellow of the Carnegie Council on Policy Studies in Higher Education at the University of California-Berkeley for five years, followed by a two-year stint as senior fellow with the Carnegie Foundation. Levine moved full-scale into educational administration next, serving seven years as president of Bradford College in Massachusetts. Five years of serving as chair of the Institution of Education Management at Harvard University led to a post as president of Teachers College in New York City.

Levine has found time throughout his education career to write such books as Why Innovation Fails (1980), Shaping Higher Education's Future (1989), and Higher Learning in America (1993). He married lawyer Linda C. Fentiman on August 18, 1974 and they raised two children, Jamie Sloan Fentiman and Rachel Elizabeth Fentiman.

Arthur Levine finds writing tough but rewarding, and enjoys such activities as tennis and movies.

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