Columbia University Provost Katznelson's Russell Sage Foundation Connection: Part 8

 

"Non-profit" Social Science Research Council: Former and current presidents linked to Columbia University and Russell Sage Foundation?

Besides being the Columbia provost who failed to immediately agree to meet the demands of the Graduate Workers of Columbia-UAW 2110 union during its 2021 strike at the Upper West Side university, former Russell Sage Foundation Board of Trustees Chair and Trustee and 2019--2020 Russell Sage Foundation “Olivia Sage Scholar” Ira Katznelson  sat on the Brooklyn-based Social Science Research Council’s board of directors and executive committee from 2008 until at least 2018; and, between 2012 and August 31, 2017, Columbia Provost Katznelson was the president of the  Social Science Research Council.

For being the Social Science Research Council president, Columbia Provost Katznelson obtained a total annual compensation of $323,091 between 2016 and 2017 from that “non-profit” organization, according to the Social Science Research Council’s Form 990 financial filing for 2017.

And former Russell Sage Foundation Trustee Katznelson’s successor as the Social Science Research Council President since September 2017 has been a former sociology professor and former “Dean of Social Science” at institutionally racist Columbia University, Alondra Nelson, who has also apparently sat on the boards of both the “philanthropic” Andrew W. Mellon and Russell Sage foundations in 2020. As a Jan. 30, 2020 press release that was posted on the Manhattan-based “non-profit” Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s website noted:

 

“The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation today announced that Alondra Nelson, president of the Social Science Research Council…has been elected to its Board of Trustees.

“`We are thrilled that Alondra Nelson is joining the Mellon Board…,’ said Mellon Board of Trustees Chair Kathryn Hall….

“`It is a deep honor to join the Mellon Board of Trustees..,’ said Nelson.

“…Nelson was on the faculty of Columbia University, where she served as the inaugural dean of social science for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences...Nelson’s research has been supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation….”

Coincidentally, less than six months after 2019--2020 Russell Sage Foundation “Olivia Sage Scholar” Katznelson’s successor as Social Science Research Council president was “elected” to the Mellon Foundation board of trustees, the Russell Sage Foundation stated in a June 21, 2020 blog post, on its own website, that “the Russell Sage Foundation is pleased to announce the appointment of…Alondra Nelson to its board of trustees effective at its November 2020 board meeting.”

Then, in a subsequent Jan. 22, 2021 blog post, the Russell Sage Foundation, coincidentally, announced that the former Columbia professor of sociology, Social Science Research Council president, Mellon Foundation trustee and Russell Sage Foundation trustee, “Alondra Nelson has been appointed by President Biden as deputy director for science and society;” and “in this capacity, she will help lead the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).”

 

On its website, the Social Science Research Council claims it is “an independent” and “nonprofit” institution that “mobilizes necessary knowledge for the public good,” whose slogan is “Mobilizing Social Science For The Public Good.”

Yet according to its Form 990 financial filing for 2018, between July 1, 2018 and June 30, 2019 the “nonprofit” Social Science Research Council (which, as a “public charity,” paid no federal income tax on its investment income of over $2.2 million and total revenues of over $19.6 million) spent less than $5 million on grants (including $798,712 on 177 ‘research” grants), but over $9 million on “salaries/other compensation/employee benefits.”

For example, Social Science Research Council President Nelson (who was paid a total compensation of $84,766 between Sept. 1, 2017 and June 30, 2018 by the Social Science Research Council, after she succeeded Columbia Provost Katznelson as its president during this period, according to its Form 990 financial filing for 2017) received a total annual compensation of $276,007 from this non-profit organization between July 1, 2018 and June 30, 2019; before also joining the Mellon Foundation board of trustees in January 2020, joining the Russell Sage Foundation board of trustees in November 2020 and joining the Biden White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in 2021.

Coincidentally, the Russell Sage Foundation trustee who was given a grant of $163,531 by the Russell Sage Foundation to study “Sociostructural and psychological factors supporting the misperception of racial economic equality” in 2020-2021, Yale University Professor Jennifer Richeson, also sits on the board of directors of the Social Science Research Council—next to former Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs “research scholar” and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Trustee Vishakha N. Desai (who is also a board member of “one of the five biggest global companies in India,” Mahindra and Mahindra, according to the Social Science Research Council’s website).

In addition, other Social Science Research Council board members who sit next to Russell Sage Foundation Trustee Richeson include: Columbia University Professor of Economics and former Goldman, Sachs & Company Vice-President Jose A. Scheinkman; former Federal Reserve Bank of New York Senior Vice-President Til Schuerman; Skyview Ventures Principal and former Deutsche Bank and Bankers Trust Managing Director Peter Nager; Windcrest Partners General Partner Michael Gellert; Warburg Pincus Special Limited Partner William H. Janeway; and Curten Capital Managing Partner Joseph Schull (who is “a longstanding investor in the technology, media and telecommunications sector,” according to the Social Science Research Council website).

And although Social Science Research Council President and Russell Sage Foundation Trustee Nelson also sits next to “longstanding investor in the technology, media and telecommunication sector” Joseph Schull on the board of the Social Science Research Council (despite this “non-profit” claiming to be mobilizing social science “for the public good”), as previously noted, the Russell Sage Foundation website’s Jan. 22, 2021 blog post observed that Social Science Research Council President Nelson, coincidentally, will now “help lead the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy” in 2021 as the Biden White House’s “deputy director for science and society.”

(end of part 8. To be continued). (This article was first posted on the Upper West Side Patch website)