George R. McDowell Professor Emeritus Growth and Development Ph.D. 1975, Michigan State University E-mail: mcdowell@vt.edu

George McDowell joined the faculty in 1987 and spent two years as advisor in an agricultural policy project in Zambia before arriving in Blacksburg. He is an institutional economist with long-term research and extension focus on rural and community economics and on the role and performance of land-grant universities in our society. In addition to his extension responsibilities, he has a long-standing interest in international development. In 1996 he returned from a two year assignment on an institution-strengthening project with the Agricultural University of Tirana, Albania.

Before becoming an academic, Professor McDowell served as an IVS volunteer agricultural extension specialist in South Vietnam, and as a Peace Corps administrator in Kenya and Malaysia. He was a faculty member at the University of Massachusetts from 1974 to 1987.

Selected Publications:

“Engaged Universities: Lessons from the Land-Grant Universities and Extension.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 585, January 2003.

Land-Grant Universities and Extension into the 21st Century Renegotiating or Abandoning a Social Contract published by Iowa State University Press, April 2001

“Some Communities Are Successful, Others Are Not: Toward an Institutional Framework for Understanding the Reasons Why.” Chapter in The Transfer of Power: Decentralization in Central and Eastern Europe. Kimball, Jonathan D., Editor, The Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative, Soros Foundation, Budapest, Hungary, 1999.

"Tribal Ritual Among the Agecon." Review of Agricultural Economics, December 1997. (With J.H. Bahn)

"Rural Virginia: Providing for the Future through Changing Policy". REAP Publication R031, Virginia Tech, 1997. (With J. Alwang and R.M. Chandler)

"How Far from Central Planning to a Market Economy? A View from Albania." CHOICES, 2nd Quarter, June 1997.