Rowe’s student Robert A. Martin wrote his doctoral dissertation on Miller under Rowe’s direction and went on to edit "The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller". For a 1982 collection, Martin asked Rowe to write a special essay-memoir, "Shadows Cast Before," in which Rowe recalled and analyzed Miller’s work as a student playwright at Michigan. As Rowe wrote in the opening passage of his essay: "The image of Arthur Miller as a student at the University of Michigan that recurs most frequently and vividly to my mind comes from the spring of 1938, his senior year...I was in my office at my desk...There was a knock on the door, slightly ajar for the spring weather, and I called "Come in." The door swung open, Arthur stepped inside and stopped at the foot of the steps, looking up, eyes glowing and face alight; and that is the picture that is in my mind, the moment before he announced, 'Professor Rowe, I've made a discovery!'" Martin and Miller opened the "Theater Essays" with the following joint dedication: "For Kenneth Thorpe Rowe--teacher, scholar, friend."