Paul E. Lingenfelter has had an unusually diversified career bridging research and public policy. At the University of Michigan during his doctoral studies he staffed university committees awarding faculty research grants and examining the role of the dissertation in graduate education for the Rackham School of Graduate Studies. At the Illinois Board of Higher Education from 1974 to 1985 he helped shape the state s funding model for community colleges, planning and budgeting systems and cost studies for public colleges and universities, and state budgets and policies for all sectors of higher