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Advisory Board

Rita Hauser — Chair

Rita E. Hauser (Chair), the longtime president of the Hauser Foundation, is an international lawyer who was a senior partner at the law firm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan for more than 20 years. She served on President Obama’s Intelligence Advisory Board and on the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under President George W. Bush. Elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012, Dr. Hauser chaired for two decades the International Peace Institute and was on the Advisory Board of the International Crisis Group. She also chaired the American Ditchley Foundation, supporting Great Britain’s leading conference center, and was elected a governor of the British Ditchley Foundation in 2010. She was a director of the International Advisory Council of the Lowy Institute for International Policy (Australia), the International Institute for Strategic Studies (UK; 1996-2006), and the RAND Corporation (1999-2009). A graduate of Hunter College (BA), She holds advanced degrees from the University of Strasbourg, in France; Harvard and NYU law schools; and the University of Paris Law Faculty. In 1997 she and her late husband founded the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University (now the Hauser Institute for Civil Society). She is a director of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and was a director of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Society for more than 20 years.

Jonathan F. Fanton

Jonathan F. Fanton served as president of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences from 2014 to 2019. Prior to that, Dr. Fanton held the position of Interim Director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College from 2009 to 2014. He previously was president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation from 1999 to 2009 and for 17 years was president of the New School for Social Research. Earlier, he was vice president of planning at the University of Chicago. Dr. Fanton holds a Ph.D. in American History from Yale University, where he taught and was special assistant to president Kingman Brewster before becoming an associate provost.

Sue A. Kaplan

Sue A. Kaplan is a research professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine at NYU’s School of Medicine and a Research Scientist at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, where she served for two years as director of the Health Policy and Management Program and for 10 years as the associate director of the Center for Health and Public Service Research. Since 2013, she has served as the director of the NYU Langone Health Community Service Plan, a multi-sector initiative that works to promote health in the communities of Sunset Park and Red Hook in Brooklyn, and on the Lower East Side and Chinatown in Manhattan. Before coming to NYU, Ms. Kaplan was the vice president for Planning and director of Special Projects and Policy at NYC Health + Hospitals.

Elbrun Kimmelman

Elbrun Kimmelman (’72) has served the nonprofit sector for more than 30 years in development, culture preservation, education, and foreign policy. She founded several organizations that raise funds in the United States to be used abroad to support, for example, the restoration of Osmania Woman ‘s College in India, the expansion of the collections of the National Galleries of Scotland, performances abroad of the London Philharmonic, and a College in Istanbul, Turkey. She is a pioneer in the use of American marketing and advertising techniques for helping to achieve development goals in nations throughout South and Central America, the Philippines, Mexico and India, advising key governmental agencies, implementing and evaluating on-the-ground projects. Additionally, she served as chairman of the New York Council for the Humanities, as a trustee of the National Institute of Social Science, and is a 20 year board member of Foreign Policy Association.

Stanley S. Litow

Stanley S. Litow is a professor at Columbia University and Duke University, where he also serves as Innovator in Residence. The author of Breaking Barriers: How P-Tech Schools Create A Pathway From High School To College To Career and The Challenge for Business and Society: From Risk to Reward, Litow previously worked as president of the IBM International Foundation and as deputy chancellor of Schools for the City of New York. Before that, he held positions as president and founder of Interface and as executive director of the NYC Urban Corps, operating out of the Mayor’s Office. He is also a member of the SUNY Board of Trustees.

Rick Luftglass

Rick Luftglass is executive director of the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund. He began his career in New York City cultural nonprofits, received an MBA at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and spent 16 years at Pfizer, where he served as executive director of the Pfizer Foundation and senior director of corporate philanthropy and community engagement. Mr. Luftglass has served as a consultant for private foundations, including the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and as a grants reviewer for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Choice Neighborhoods and the Department of Education’s Promise Neighborhoods initiatives, which were part of the Obama Administration’s flagship neighborhood revitalization strategy.  Luftglass has served as a board member of Philanthropy New York and co-chair of its foundation CEO Roundtable. He also serves as president of the board of the Center for Traditional Music and Dance, a nonprofit that works to sustain the cultural heritage of urban immigrant communities, and as chair of Economic Development for Brooklyn’s Community Board 6.

H.Carl McCall

Hon. H. Carl McCall is former New York State Comptroller and Chairman Emeritus of the State University of New York. His public service also includes three terms as New York State Senator representing upper Manhattan, Ambassador to the United Nations, Commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and Commissioner of the New York State Division of Human Rights. Before joining the SUNY Board of Trustees, he was president of the New York City Board of Education from 1991 to 1993, and chairman of the Public Higher Education Conference Board, a coalition of 14 member organizations that support a strong and vibrant public higher education system in New York State.  McCall has also been active in the private sector, serving as vice president of Citibank and as corporate director of the New York Stock Exchange, Tyco International, New Plan Realty Corporation, and Ariel Investment. He was awarded the Governor’s Medal of Public Service in 2020 and the landmark SUNY administration headquarters in downtown Albany was renamed the H. Carl McCall SUNY Building. Author of the memoir Truly Blessed and Highly Favored, McCall was educated at Dartmouth College, Andover Newton Theological Seminary, and the University of Edinburgh. In 2020, he was a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Roosevelt House.

Chris McNickle

Chris McNickle is the author of To Be Mayor of New York: Ethnic Politics in the CityThe Power of the Mayor: David Dinkins 1990-1993Bloomberg: A Billionaire’s Ambition; and Passages: A Personal Journey. His articles and opinions on finance, politics, and history have been published in scholarly journals as well as the New York Daily NewsCrain’s New York Business, and the Financial Times. A former treasurer of the American Historical Association (AHA), he was a member of its finance committee and chairman of its Investment Subcommittee, responsible for managing the AHA endowment. McNickle has over 20 years’ experience in the asset management industry, serving as a senior vice president at Prudential Retirement Services, the global head of institutional business for Fidelity International, managing director and head of the global investment management practice of Greenwich Associates, and leader of the business strategy department at JP Morgan Investment Management.

Dorothy Samuels

Dorothy Samuels is a former 30-year member of the New York Times editorial board and former senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. At the Times, Samuels wrote on a wide array of legal and public policy issues, with a particular focus on the justice system, civil rights, and civil liberties. Previously, she served as executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. She is the author of a comic novel, Filthy Rich.

Max Schapiro

Max Schapiro is a managing partner at Wolfson Partners LLC, a financial advisory and investment banking firm. Previously, he was vice president at The Raine Group, an integrated merchant bank advising and investing in high growth sectors of technology, media and telecom. Before that he was an associate analyst at Goldman Sachs. Mr. Schapiro received a Bachelors of Science in Economics and Finance Management from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Daniel Shuchman

Daniel Shuchman is the former longterm chairman of the board of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), the pre-eminent nonprofit dedicated to defending free speech on campus. He is also fund manager at MSD Partners, L.P., a New York-based investment firm. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Shuchman has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. He lives in New York City with his wife and two children.

Gregory D. Shufro

Gregory D. Shufro is a principal & senior financial advisor at Shufro Rose. Prior to joining Shufro Rose, he was an attorney at Seward & Kissel LLP and Loeb & Loeb LLP.  He serves as a vice president of the board of the Child Center of New York, an organization that serves over 35,000 at-risk children and families each year through early childhood education, behavioral health, integrated care, prevention services, and youth development programs. He is a member of the advisory board for Andover Bread Loaf, a program whose mission is to promote literacy and educational revitalization through the lens of social justice in the most under-resourced communities and school systems around the world, particularly in U.S. urban communities and public schools. He is a member of the board of trustees of the Jewish Center of the Hamptons. He received his B.A. in English from the University of Pennsylvania in 1991 and his J.D. from Fordham University School of Law in 1997.

Susan M. Steinhardt

Susan M. Steinhardt is a co-founder and President of Homework Helpers, Inc. a non-profit that creates computer rooms in under-served neighborhoods where students receive homework help and computer instruction and where GED, ESL and SAT prep classes are offered.
To date, there are 35 Homework Helpers sites. Ms. Steinhardt is also Chair of the Southampton Village Board of Ethics, on the Executive Committee of the Hunter College Foundation, and serves on the Boards of the Stony Brook Foundation and the Hamptons International Film Festival.
She is an attorney who specialized in banking and corporate matters for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, American Express Company and Ramius Capital Group.

Anthony F. Stepanski

Anthony F. Stepanski is a 40-year veteran of the computer systems & technology industry with international executive experience. His career began with a four-year stint at IBM in the mid 1960s. He has served as a member of the board of trustees of Clark University including, a term as vice chairman. He also served on the boards of the Westchester County Artificial Kidney Center, the Children’s Specialized Hospital (Mountainside, NJ), the New Jersey Festival Orchestra’s founding organization, and the Beaumont Condominium (New York), where he served a term as president. He has supported Roosevelt House exhibition programs and also sponsors lecture series at the House.

Lynn Thoman

Lynn Thoman is a professor at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs and also the founder of 3 Takeaways, a top 2% global podcast. At Columbia, she teaches on scaling social impact and creating successful public-private partnerships. She has worked in business, non-profits, and government. She previously worked at American Express in international marketing, strategic planning, and finance. As a Vice President of American Express, she was responsible for setting the direction for marketing for all countries outside the US. She also developed restructuring plans for American Express businesses in the UK, Europe, and Asia. In the non-profit sector, she serves on many non-profit boards (see below) and has also variously been co-president and co-chair of the Lowenstein Foundation. She has also served on government committees such as the Secretary of Transportation’s Advisory Committee on Human Trafficking. Thoman holds a BA from Princeton and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She has worked in over 40 countries in Europe, Asia, and Latin America and has lived in China.

Katrina vanden Heuvel

Katrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of The Nation. She served as editor of the magazine from 1995 to 2019. She also writes a weekly column for the Washington Post. A frequent commentator on US and international politics for ABC, MSNBC, CNN, and PBS, her articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe. Ms. Vanden Heuvel is also the author of several books, including The Change I Believe In: Fighting for Progress in The Age of Obama and co-author, with Stephen F. Cohen, of Voices of Glasnost: Interviews with Gorbachev’s Reformers. She has been recognized for her journalism and public service by organizations such as Planned Parenthood, the National Women’s Political Caucus, the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Community Change, the Norman Mailer Center, the Eleanor Roosevelt Center at Val-Kill, American Rights at Work, and Progressive Congress. During her tenure, The Nation has been recognized for excellence by the National Magazine Awards, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Maggie Awards, GLAAD, and the National Association of Black Journalists.

 

Ex officio:

Harold Holzer
Nancy Cantor

 

Emeritus:

Ira Katznelson
Richard Menschel
David Rockefeller, Jr.

In Memoriam:

Michael Gellert (1931–2021)
Robert A. Katzmann (1953–2021)
William vanden Heuvel (1930–2021)
Richard Ravitch (1933–2023)