Donald Andrew Cowan (May 26, 1914 – 2002) was an American educator and nuclear physicist. He was president of the University of Dallas 1962–1977, where he retired as a University Professor. He was particularly known for his work with his wife, literary critic and teacher Louise Cowan, to grow the University of Dallas and to center its programs around a traditionalist core curriculum focused on great books.

Cowan was born May 26, 1914, in Fort Worth, Texas.^[1] After graduating high school during the Great Depression and at first unable to attend college, he studied radar for the US Air Force.^[2] He married Louise Cowan (née Shillingburg) in 1939.^[2] He then attended Texas Christian University, graduating with an A.B. in physics in 1947,^[1][3] and next he earned his PhD in physics from Vanderbilt University in 1951.^[1][3]

After earning his PhD, Cowan briefly served as an assistant professor of physics at Vanderbilt University.^[4] In 1953, he and his wife then came back to Fort Worth, Texas for her to teach at Texas Christian University.^[2] He worked at the nuclear physics laboratory at Convair in Fort Worth until 1955, then became manager of their Atomic Industrial Program.^[1] He later served as an advisor to the Texas Governor's Advisory Commission on Atomic Energy.^[1] He became an associate professor at Texas Christian University in 1956.^[1]

In 1959, the Cowans moved to the Catholic University of Dallas, where he became a professor of physics and head of the sciences department.^[3][5][6] He became president of the University of Dallas in 1962 and served in the position through 1977, retiring as a University Professor. He succeeded Robert J. Morris (president 1960–1962). In this role, he and his wife transformed the curriculum of the university to focus on a core of great books education.^[5][6]

He was succeeded as president first by acting president Damian C. Fandall, a Dominican priest, in March 1977,^[7] and then by medievalist John R. Sommerfeldt (1978–1980).^[8] Cowan was allegedly forced out and made to take a leave of absence in 1977 after disagreements with university board members associated with Texas Instruments (TI) about the importance of distance learning;^[6] the source further reports that he was replaced with a TI executive,^[6] but former TI chief financial officer Bryan F. Smith (1920–2007) served as chancellor of the university concurrently with the end of Cowan's presidency (1976–1978) rather than replacing him as president.^[9]

After his term as president, he and his wife founded the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture.^[6] They returned to the University of Dallas in 1994.^[5]

In 1988, he published a book on education and the importance of classics and myths in liberal arts education titled Unbinding Prometheus: Education for the Coming Age.^[5][10]

Cowan married Mary Louise Shillingburg, later well known as Louise Cowan, in 1939 in Fort Worth, Texas.^[2] They had one son, Bainard Cowan, in 1949, and they remained married until Donald's death; she died in 2015.^[11]

He developed Alzheimer's disease in the 1990s and died in Dallas of complications of the disease in 2002.^[6]

Cowan and his wife are namesakes of the Donald And Louise Cowan Center and (with William A. Blakley) the Cowan - Blakley Memorial Library at the University of Dallas,^[12][13] and he is the namesake of the University of Dallas Donald A. Cowan Physics Institute.^[14]

• Unbinding Prometheus: Education for the Coming Age. 1988. The Dallas Institute Publications. ISBN 978-0911005332

• Donald and Louise Cowan Center at the University of Dallas
• Profile, with his wife Louise Cowan as well, at First Things