Barker, H. Kenneth Center for Economic Education Endowment
A veteran of World War II, Dr. H. Kenneth Barker received his BA and MA in psychology from the University of Louisville in 1948. He earned his Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Michigan in 1959. Dr. Barker came to Akron in 1966 and served as dean of the College of Education at The University of Akron from 1966 to 1987. He also served as special assistant to the president for several years and dean of the University's International program from 1966 to 1979. He has been listed in several publications, including Who's Who in America and Leaders in Education. Dr. Barker was made an honorary alumnus of the University in 1992.
Dr. Barker was instrumental in the establishment of the Center for Economic Education at the University in 1975. The Center was founded to inspire teachers to include principles of economic education in their curriculum, since there was a lack of fundamental economic understanding in public schools. The program grew from individual classes to day-long seminars, with prominent local business people involved. The Center was named in Dr. Barker’s honor in 2001. Today, The H. Kenneth Barker Center for Economic Education hosts the ground-breaking Virtual Campus, a collaboration of websites including a worldwide teacher information exchange, and Googlenomics, the first search engine of economic education and a foremost teacher reference library. The H. Kenneth Barker Center for Economic Education Endowment was established by H. Kenneth Barker to provide unrestricted support for the Center for Economic Education.