The Trustees of Columbia University

Grantee:        Trustees of Columbia University
Ranking:       25th highest grantee, 2005 — 2009
Received:     $3,613,795
Type:             Academic Institution
Issues:

About: Columbia University was founded in 1754 as King’s College by royal charter of King George II of England. It is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York and the fifth oldest in the United States . . . The founding of the School of International Affairs in 1946 marked the beginning of intensive growth in international relations as a major scholarly focus of the University.

It was . . . in the 1960s that Columbia experienced the most significant crisis in its history. Currents of unrest sweeping the country’among them opposition to the Vietnam War, an increasingly militant civil rights movement, and the ongoing decline of America’s inner cities’converged with particular force at Columbia, casting the Morningside campus into the national spotlight. More than 1,000 protesting students occupied five buildings in the last week of April 1968 . . . [which] led to the creation of the University Senate, in which faculty, students, and alumni acquired a larger voice in University affairs.

Columbia has a well-earned reputation as a hotbed of academic radicalism.

Mission Statement: Columbia University is one of the world’s most important centers of research and at the same time a distinctive and distinguished learning environment for undergraduates and graduate students in many scholarly and professional fields. The University recognizes the importance of its location in New York City and seeks to link its research and teaching to the vast resources of a great metropolis. It seeks to attract a diverse and international faculty and student body, to support research and teaching on global issues, and to create academic relationships with many countries and regions. It expects all areas of the university to advance knowledge and learning at the highest level and to convey the products of its efforts to the world.

Soros Funding:  Columbia University’s unusual characteristics lend themselves to the OSI’s desires to inject their ideological imperatives into established institutions.  Soros is enabled to directly fund independent and ideologically extreme projects at Columbia, projects that would be subject to more professional and objective review procedures elsewhere:

• Revson Fellows:  The Revson Fellows program at Columbia University is a sort of ‘Open Society’ Incubation Tank.  Radical recipients of Revson Fellowships include, but are not limited to, Sofiya Elijah, and Dhabah Almonstader
•  “Support[ing] field research . . . to demonstrate that the U.S. executes innocent people.
• Justice Mapping Projects
• Columbia Journalism Review: Soros’ controversial funding of the allegedly independent watchdog CJR raises questions.
• “Justice Reinvestment . . .progressive planning solutions”
• Social Work Hospice/Palliative Care Network
• Guidebook for Policymakers on the Management of Extractive Industries
• Design a “Neighborhood-based Plan” for “Rebuilding a Million-Dollar Block.”
• Oral History of the Journalism of the War in Iraq
• Housing and Criminal Justice Working Group
•  HIV/AIDS in Iran
• Prisoner Re-Entry and and Rebuilding Housing Destroyed in Hurricane Katrina
• Earned Income Tax Credit as Source of Income for Non-Custodial African-American Men

Officers:

• Lee C. Bollinger, President, “A prominent advocate of affirmative action, he played a leading role in the twin Supreme Court cases that upheld and clarified the importance of diversity as a compelling justification for affirmative action in higher education.”

University Senate:

• Fran Pritchett, A&S/HUM Tenured Faculty
• Sharyn O’Halloran, CHAIR, SIPA Tenured Faculty
• Letty Moss-Salentijn, CDM Tenured Faculty
• James Applegate, A&S/NS Tenured Faculty
• Debra Wolgemuth, P&S Tenured Faculty
• Samuel Silverstein, P&S Tenured Faculty
• Bette Gordon, ARTS Adjunct Faculty
• Mark Cohen, BUS Adjunct faculty
• Alex Frouman, CC Student
• Adil Ahamed, BUS Student
• Mi Wang, GSAS/NS Student
• Lee Bollinger, Administration
• John Coatsworth, Administration

Trustees of Columbia University:

• William V. Campbell, Chair
• Mark E. Kingdon, Vice Chair
• Philip Milstein, Vice Chair
• Esta Stecher, Vice Chair
• Richard E. Witten, Vice Chair
• Rolando T. Acosta
• Armen A. Avanessians
• Lee C. Bollinger, President of the University
• A’Lelia Bundles
• José A. Cabranes
• Lisa Carnoy
• Fiona Druckenmiller
• Kenneth Forde
• Noam Gottesman
• James Harden
• Ann F. Kaplan
• Jonathan Lavine
• Gerry Lenfest
• Paul J. Maddon
• Vikram Pandit
• Michael B. Rothfeld
• Jonathan D. Schiller
• Kyriakos Tsakopoulos
• Faye Wattleton