William Dowel Baten (1892-1974) became a professor of mathematics at Michigan State College (now Michigan State University) in 1937. From 1949 until his retirement in 1961, he also served as statistician for the MSU Agricultural Experiment Station. He was chairman of the Michigan Section of the American Society for Quality Control from 1955-1956. In the fall of those years, he offered a course in quality control by statistical methods for personnel in industries within a 50-mile radius of East Lansing, Michigan. During his career, Baten published more than 70 papers and several books concerning mathematics and statistics. He received a B.A. from Baylor University, an M.A. from Texas University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Prior to joining the MSC faculty in 1937, Baten served as head of the mathematics department at North Texas Junior A & M College in Arlington, Texas from 1919-1923; from 1923-1924 he was a mathematics instructor at Texas A & M College in College Station, Texas; and from 1924-1927 he was the head of mathematics at Bessie Tift College in Forsyth, Georgia. From 1927-1928 Baten was an associate professor of mathematics at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and from 1928-1937 he served as an instructor and assistant mathematics professor at the University of Michigan.

In 1955 Baten became a Fellow of the American Society for Quality Control. He was also a member of the Mathematical Association of America, the American Statistical Association, the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts and Letters, the American Engineers of Quality Control, Sigma Xi, and Pi Mu Epsilon. Baten was married to Versie Marie Baten and had a son, James, and a daughter, Margaret.