James Piereson, Vice Chairman
President, William E. Simon Foundation


James Piereson is president of the William E. Simon Foundation, a private grantmaking foundation located in New York City. The foundation has broad charitable interests in education, religion, and problems of youth. He assumed this post in 2006. Mr. Piereson is also a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute in New York where he is director of the Center for the American University and Chairman of the Selection Committee for The Veritas Fund which allocates grants to programs on college and university campuses.

Mr. Piereson was executive director and trustee of the John M. Olin Foundation from 1985 through 2005 when, following longstanding plans, the foundation disbursed its remaining assets and closed its doors. The John M. Olin Foundation maintained program interests in the areas of public affairs and public policy, and awarded grants in these areas to support research, fellowships, books and journals, and television documentaries. Most of its funds were allocated each year to major universitites and private research institutions. Mr. Piereson joined the John M. Olin Foundation in 1981 as a program officer, and was appointed executive director in 1985. He was elected to the Board of Trustees in 1987. Prior to joining the Foundation, he served on the Political Science faculties of several prominent universities, including Iowa State University (1974), Indiana University (1975), and the University of Pennsylvania (1976-1982), where he taught courses in the fields of United States government and political thought.

Mr. Piereson is also trustee of the William E. Simon Foundation. He serves on the boards of several other tax exempt institutions, including: The Pinkerton Foundation, the Thomas W. Smith Foundation, the Center for Individual Rights, the Philanthropy Roundtable (Chairman, 1995-99), the Foundation for Cultural Review (Chairman), the American Spectator Foundation, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and DonorsTrust. He is a past member of the Board of Trustees of The Manhattan Institute. He is a member of the selection committee for the Clare Boothe Luce Program for Women in the Sciences, Medicine, and Engineering administered by the Henry Luce Foundation of New York City. He is chairman of the selection committee for the Hayek Book Prize. He is a member of the Executive Advisory Committee of the Graduate School of Business at the University of Rochester, of the Board of Visitors of the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University, and of the Advisory Council of the Henry Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom at Claremont McKenna College.

Mr. Piereson is the author of Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism (Encounter Books, 2007). He is also the author (with J. Sullivan and G. Marcus) of Political Tolerance and American Democracy (University of Chicago Press, 1982). He is the editor of The Pursuit of Liberty: Can the Ideals that Made Amerca Great Provide a Model for the World (Encounter Books, 2008). He has also published articles and reviews in numerous journals, including Commentary, The New Criterion, The American Political Science Review, The Public Interest, the Journal of Politics, Philanthropy, The American Spectator, The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, and National Review.

Recent articles and reviews include:
"The Decline of Liberal Idealism," The Weekly Standard, November 22, 2010
"Conservative Nation," The National Interest, November-December, 2010.
"Where Columbia Beats Harvard," The Wall Street Journal, September 3, 2010.
"Columbia Beats Harvard," The New Criterion, September, 2010.
"The Magazine Maker," review of Alan Brinkley, The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century, Commentary, April, 2010.
"Remembering Irving Kristol," The New Criterion, February, 2010.
"The Hollow and the Ivy," Review of Louis Menand, The Marketplace of Ideas, National Review, February 22, 2010.
"Is Conservatism Dead?", The New Criterion, September, 2009.
"Overlords of World War II," Review of Andrew Roberts, Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, The American Spectator, July, 2009.
"The Cultural Contradictions of J. M. Keynes," The New Criterion, May, 2009.
"The New Deal Metaphor," The Weekly Standard, January 19, 2009.
"Sentimental Education," The New Criterion, September 2008.
"It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over," The Weekly Standard, October 27, 2008.
"Liberalism versus Humanism," The New Criterion, May, 2008.
"Facing Capitalism's Greatest Crisis," The Weekly Standard, March 31, 2008.
"The Culture of Conspiracy," The Wall Street Journal, November 24, 2007.
"The Closing of the American Mind after Two Decades," The New Criterion, November, 2007.
"Meddling Through, Review of Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression," Commentary, September, 2007.
"The Rise and Fall of the Intellectual," The New Criterion, September, 2006.
"Lee Harvey Oswald and the Liberal Crack-up," Commentary, May 2006.
"On Manliness," The New Criterion, May, 2006
"Michael Joyce, 1942-2006," The Weekly Standard, March 20, 2006
"Harvard Lays an Egg," The Weekly Standard, March 6, 2006
"It Only Encourages Them," Wall Street Journal, November 18, 2005
"The Left University," The Weekly Standard, October 3, 2005 (cover article)
"Planting Seeds of Liberty on Campus," Philanthropy, May/June, 2005
"Investing in Conservative Ideas," Commentary, May, 2005
"You Get What You Pay For," The Wall Street Journal, July 21, 2004.
"Punitive Liberalism," The Weekly Standard, June 28, 2004.
"Under God: The History of a Phrase," The Weekly Standard, October 18, 2003 (cover article)
"The Economy and the Election," The Weekly Standard, April 12, 2004.

Mr. Piereson earned a Ph.D. in political science from Michigan State University.