Randolph Foundation
Encyclopedia
The Randolph Foundation (TRF) is a New York
-based charitable foundation that first operated in 1972 as the H. Smith Richardson Charitable Trust. It transitioned to independence from the Smith Richardson Foundation, assuming the name of The Randolph Foundation from 1991–1993, and was reconstituted as a NY non-profit corporation in 2002. The foundation provides funding primarily for public policy
related projects. Heather Higgins
(née Richardson) is its President.
, founder of the Vicks
chemical company.
Chartered with a broad mandate, it was operated under the aegis of the Smith Richardson Foundation
's public policy arm, making grants that were, for the most part, indistinguishable from the focus of the Smith Richardson Foundation per se.
In the spring of 1991, the Randolph Foundation began to operate as an organization—under new Executive Director Heather Higgins—and in 1993 became wholly separate from the Smith Richardson Foundation. As of 2005, the foundation held just under $70 million in assets.
and offer policy alternatives. Such projects include television programs, films, books, and academic studies.
's weekly Think Tank
, which features commentator Ben J. Wattenberg
. Think Tank episodes have featured discussion on such issues as gun control
and controversies in modern feminism
.
Again working with New River Media and the team from Think Tank, the foundation provided funding for Heaven on Earth: the Rise and Fall of Socialism
. The 2005 film was shown as a three-part mini-series on PBS and is a companion film to the 2002 book of the same name by Joshua Muravchik
. A PBS synopsis of the film portrayed its central ideas as follows:
The Randolph Foundation was one source of funding for God and the Inner City, a one-hour 2003 documentary chiefly backed by the Pew Charitable Trusts which examined both faith-based and secular charities operating in inner-city environs. The foundation also provided financial support to Free to Choose Media for The Power of Choice, a 2007 film biography of Chicago School
economist
Milton Friedman
.
political scientist
Christopher Wolfe for a project that would eventually culminate in his 2006 book, Natural Law Liberalism. In Natural Law Liberalism, Wolfe advances the position that American public policy should be based on classical natural law
theory in the Thomist tradition, which he argues results in policies characteristic of political liberalism
.
TRF was also a source of funding for a book produced by the free-market environmentalist Property and Environment Research Center
(PERC). Eco-nomics: What Everyone Should Know about Economics and the Environment was penned by agricultural economist
Richard L. Stroup
and published by the Cato Institute
in 2003. The book, which won a 2004 award from the Atlas Economic Research Foundation
, targets the "educated lay person," offering public policy recommendations in keeping with the private, market approach to conservation.
Naomi Schaefer Riley received a grant from the foundation for her book, God on the Quad: How Religious Colleges and the Missionary Generation Are Changing America. The 2004 St. Martin's Press
offering was the result of research conducted by Riley at twenty higher education institutions affiliated with a religious group. The book examines classes and student life at institutions including Brigham Young University
, Baylor University
, and Bob Jones University
and discusses the potential impact of these schools' growing attendance on those interested in "bringing faith into the professional world."
Currently, TRF is funding a Council on Foreign Relations
book project by CFR senior fellow Max Boot
. The project, which has been in progress since 2003 and is also sponsored by several other organizations,
. Its methodology and conclusions were criticized by the American Association of University Professors
.
TRF is funding a six-year University of Virginia
study examining parental leave
policies in United States universities and their possible effect on gender roles. According to a description on the university's website, the fundamental questions to be addressed by the study relate to the fact that,
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
-based charitable foundation that first operated in 1972 as the H. Smith Richardson Charitable Trust. It transitioned to independence from the Smith Richardson Foundation, assuming the name of The Randolph Foundation from 1991–1993, and was reconstituted as a NY non-profit corporation in 2002. The foundation provides funding primarily for public policy
Public policy
Public policy as government action is generally the principled guide to action taken by the administrative or executive branches of the state with regard to a class of issues in a manner consistent with law and institutional customs. In general, the foundation is the pertinent national and...
related projects. Heather Higgins
Heather Higgins
Heather Richardson Higgins is an American businesswoman, political commentator and non-profit sector executive. She is the president and CEO of Independent Women's Voice, the 501 sister organization of the Independent Women's Forum....
(née Richardson) is its President.
Creation and mission
The Randolph Foundation was established as a charitable trust under the will of H. Smith Richardson in 1972. H. Smith Richardson was an heir of Lunsford RichardsonLunsford Richardson
Lunsford Richardson , 1854-1919, was a U.S. pharmacist from Selma, North Carolina, and the founder of Vick Chemical Company . He died August 20, 1919.-Early life:...
, founder of the Vicks
Vicks
Vicks is a line of over-the-counter medications owned by the American company Procter & Gamble. Vicks manufactures NyQuil and its sister medication, DayQuil. The Vicks brand also produces Formula 44 cough medicines, cough drops, VapoRub, and a number of inhaled breathing treatments...
chemical company.
Chartered with a broad mandate, it was operated under the aegis of the Smith Richardson Foundation
Smith Richardson Foundation
The Smith Richardson Foundation is a private foundation based in Westport, Connecticut, that supports policy research in the realms of foreign and domestic public policy....
's public policy arm, making grants that were, for the most part, indistinguishable from the focus of the Smith Richardson Foundation per se.
In the spring of 1991, the Randolph Foundation began to operate as an organization—under new Executive Director Heather Higgins—and in 1993 became wholly separate from the Smith Richardson Foundation. As of 2005, the foundation held just under $70 million in assets.
Notable projects
The Randolph Foundation sponsors numerous projects that examine current public policyPublic policy
Public policy as government action is generally the principled guide to action taken by the administrative or executive branches of the state with regard to a class of issues in a manner consistent with law and institutional customs. In general, the foundation is the pertinent national and...
and offer policy alternatives. Such projects include television programs, films, books, and academic studies.
Television and film
Through its funding of New River Media, the foundation serves as a major source of sponsorship for PBSPublic Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
's weekly Think Tank
Think Tank (TV series)
Think Tank was a discussion program on Public Broadcasting Service Public television, hosted by Ben Wattenberg. It aired weekly from 1994 to 2010. Wattenberg has expressed a hope that the series will return to the air if and when the economy improves, making more funds available for...
, which features commentator Ben J. Wattenberg
Ben J. Wattenberg
Benjamin J. Wattenberg is an American conservative commentator and writer.-Early years:Wattenberg was born in The Bronx, New York, to Jewish parents, and went on to graduate from Hobart College in 1955, majoring in English. From 1955 to 1957 he was in the U.S. Air Force, based in San Antonio. He...
. Think Tank episodes have featured discussion on such issues as gun control
Gun control
Gun control is any law, policy, practice, or proposal designed to restrict or limit the possession, production, importation, shipment, sale, and/or use of guns or other firearms by private citizens...
and controversies in modern feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
.
Again working with New River Media and the team from Think Tank, the foundation provided funding for Heaven on Earth: the Rise and Fall of Socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
. The 2005 film was shown as a three-part mini-series on PBS and is a companion film to the 2002 book of the same name by Joshua Muravchik
Joshua Muravchik
Joshua Muravchik is a scholar formerly at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research and now a fellow at the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University....
. A PBS synopsis of the film portrayed its central ideas as follows:
- As an idea that changed the way people thought, socialism's success was spectacular. As a critique of capitalism that helped spawn modern social safety nets and welfare states, its success was appreciable. As a model for the development of post-colonial states, the socialist model proved disappointing, fostering economic stagnation among millions of the world's poorest people. And in its most violent forms, socialism was calamitous, claiming scores of millions of lives and helping to make the twentieth century the bloodiest ever.
The Randolph Foundation was one source of funding for God and the Inner City, a one-hour 2003 documentary chiefly backed by the Pew Charitable Trusts which examined both faith-based and secular charities operating in inner-city environs. The foundation also provided financial support to Free to Choose Media for The Power of Choice, a 2007 film biography of Chicago School
Chicago school (economics)
The Chicago school of economics describes a neoclassical school of thought within the academic community of economists, with a strong focus around the faculty of The University of Chicago, some of whom have constructed and popularized its principles...
economist
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman was an American economist, statistician, academic, and author who taught at the University of Chicago for more than three decades...
.
Books
In 1993, the foundation began providing support to Marquette UniversityMarquette University
Marquette University is a private, coeducational, Jesuit, Roman Catholic university located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Founded by the Society of Jesus in 1881, the school is one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities...
political scientist
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
Christopher Wolfe for a project that would eventually culminate in his 2006 book, Natural Law Liberalism. In Natural Law Liberalism, Wolfe advances the position that American public policy should be based on classical natural law
Natural law
Natural law, or the law of nature , is any system of law which is purportedly determined by nature, and thus universal. Classically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature and deduce binding rules of moral behavior. Natural law is contrasted with the positive law Natural...
theory in the Thomist tradition, which he argues results in policies characteristic of political liberalism
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
.
TRF was also a source of funding for a book produced by the free-market environmentalist Property and Environment Research Center
Property and Environment Research Center
The Property and Environment Research Center, or PERC, is a free market environmentalist think tank based in Bozeman, Montana, United States. Established in 1982 as the Political Economy Research Center, PERC is dedicated to original research on market approaches to resolving environmental problems...
(PERC). Eco-nomics: What Everyone Should Know about Economics and the Environment was penned by agricultural economist
Agricultural economics
Agricultural economics originally applied the principles of economics to the production of crops and livestock — a discipline known as agronomics. Agronomics was a branch of economics that specifically dealt with land usage. It focused on maximizing the crop yield while maintaining a good soil...
Richard L. Stroup
Richard L. Stroup
Richard L. Stroup is a free market environmentalist adjunct professor at North Carolina State University, research fellow at the Independent Institute, adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute, and former professor of economics at Montana State University, where he served as head of the Department of...
and published by the Cato Institute
Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remains president and CEO, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the largest privately held...
in 2003. The book, which won a 2004 award from the Atlas Economic Research Foundation
Atlas Economic Research Foundation
The Atlas Economic Research Foundation, also known as the Atlas Network, is a non-profit organization based in the United States which organizes and convenes workshops, offers training, runs prize programs, and provides advisory services in order to continue growing and strengthening an informal...
, targets the "educated lay person," offering public policy recommendations in keeping with the private, market approach to conservation.
St. Martin's Press
St. Martin's Press is a book publisher headquartered in the Flatiron Building in New York City. Currently, St. Martin's Press is one of the United States' largest publishers, bringing to the public some 700 titles a year under eight imprints, which include St. Martin's Press , St...
offering was the result of research conducted by Riley at twenty higher education institutions affiliated with a religious group. The book examines classes and student life at institutions including Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University is a private university located in Provo, Utah. It is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and is the United States' largest religious university and third-largest private university.Approximately 98% of the university's 34,000 students...
, Baylor University
Baylor University
Baylor University is a private, Christian university located in Waco, Texas. Founded in 1845, Baylor is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.-History:...
, and Bob Jones University
Bob Jones University
Bob Jones University is a private, for-profit, non-denominational Protestant university in Greenville, South Carolina.The university was founded in 1927 by Bob Jones, Sr. , an evangelist and contemporary of Billy Sunday...
and discusses the potential impact of these schools' growing attendance on those interested in "bringing faith into the professional world."
Currently, TRF is funding a Council on Foreign Relations
Council on Foreign Relations
The Council on Foreign Relations is an American nonprofit nonpartisan membership organization, publisher, and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs...
book project by CFR senior fellow Max Boot
Max Boot
Max Boot is an American author, consultant, editorialist, lecturer, and military historian. He has been a prominent advocate for American power. He once described his ideas as "American might to promote American ideals." He self-identifies as a conservative, once joking that "I grew up in the...
. The project, which has been in progress since 2003 and is also sponsored by several other organizations,
- ...examines four major technological revolutions of the past 500 years (Gunpowder, Industrial, Mechanization, and Computerization) and how they transformed warfare and the international balance-of-power.... In addition, Mr. Boot applies the lessons of history to current dilemmas, examining crucial questions such as how long America’s military advantage will last, and what the United States can do to preserve its hegemony.
Research
Besides the research performed by Riley for God on the Quad, other studies funded by the Randolph Foundation examined higher education in the United States. A controversial 2004 study by TRF-supported scholars found that "72 percent of teachers at American colleges and universities identify themselves as liberal, compared with 15 percent who describe themselves as conservative, with the liberal tilt greatest at elite schools and in humanities and social sciences departments." This study was cited by various columnists including Cal ThomasCal Thomas
John Calvin "Cal" Thomas is an American conservative syndicated columnist, pundit, author and radio commentator.-Life and career:...
. Its methodology and conclusions were criticized by the American Association of University Professors
American Association of University Professors
The American Association of University Professors is an organization of professors and other academics in the United States. AAUP membership is about 47,000, with over 500 local campus chapters and 39 state organizations...
.
TRF is funding a six-year University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
study examining parental leave
Parental leave
Parental leave is an employee benefit that provides paid or unpaid time off work to care for a child or make arrangements for the child's welfare. Often, the term parental leave includes maternity, paternity, and adoption leave...
policies in United States universities and their possible effect on gender roles. According to a description on the university's website, the fundamental questions to be addressed by the study relate to the fact that,
- There is an ongoing quarrel in the academic literature between evolutionary psychologistsEvolutionary psychologyEvolutionary psychology is an approach in the social and natural sciences that examines psychological traits such as memory, perception, and language from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify which human psychological traits are evolved adaptations, that is, the functional...
and most feminists. The evolutionary psychologists believe that there are deep-seated hormonal and other reasons why women have done and probably always will do the vast majority of baby care. Most feminists believe that society constructs for women the role of baby care and that, with effort, this can be changed.
Organizations funded
In addition to sponsoring the projects noted above, TRF has also served as a source of funding for a number of other organizations, including:Policy and advocacy organizations
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Hoover Institution The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace is a public policy think tank and library founded in 1919 by then future U.S. president, Herbert Hoover, an early alumnus of Stanford.... Hudson Institute The Hudson Institute is an American think tank founded in 1961, in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, by futurist, military strategist, and systems theorist Herman Kahn and his colleagues at the RAND Corporation... Independent Women's Forum The Independent Women's Forum is an American conservative, non-profit, non-partisan research and educational institution focused on domestic and foreign policy issues of concern to women... Institute on Religion and Democracy The Institute on Religion and Democracy is a Christian think tank that promotes Christian conservatism in public life. The organization comments on current events in the Christian community... International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide The International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide is a 501 non-profit educational organization that concerns itself with the issues of euthanasia, doctor-prescribed suicide, advance directives, assisted suicide proposals, "right-to-die" cases, disability rights, pain control, and... Manhattan Institute The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research is a conservative, market-oriented think tank established in New York City in 1978 by Antony Fisher and William J... Middle East Media Research Institute The Middle East Media Research Institute is a Middle Eastern not for profit press monitoring organization with headquarters located in Washington, DC. MEMRI was co-founded in 1998 by Yigal Carmon, a former colonel in the Israeli military intelligence and Meyrav Wurmser, an Israeli-born, American... Philanthropy Roundtable The Philanthropy Roundtable is a private, non-partisan, 501 organization. Its stated mission is "to foster excellence in philanthropy, to protect philanthropic freedom, to assist donors in achieving their philanthropic intent, and to help donors advance liberty, opportunity, and personal... Statistical Assessment Service Statistical Assessment Service is a non-profit educational organization, based in Washington, DC, which analyzes and critiques the presentation of scientific findings and statistical evidence in the news media.-Overview:... |
Educational institutions
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Rutgers University Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American... Saint Vincent College Saint Vincent College is a four-year, coeducational, Roman Catholic, Benedictine, liberal arts college in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, located about 40 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. It was founded in 1846 by Boniface Wimmer, a monk from Bavaria, Germany. It was the first Benedictine monastery in the... Smith College Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters... University of California The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University... University of Virginia The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson... Yale University Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States... |