This year, Sheldon H. Danziger took a leave of absence to serve as the tenth president of the Russell Sage Foundation, the premier foundation devoted exclusively to social science research.
With great happiness for him, and an equal measure of sadness for us, we report that Sheldon will continue on at Russell Sage and retire from our faculty at the end of 2014.
From the moment Sheldon joined our faculty in 1988, our school was “on the map” as one of the nation’s strongest social policy programs. In 1989, with seed funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and ongoing support from the Ford Foundation, he launched an incredibly successful postdoctoral fellowship program in poverty and policy for underrepresented minorities. In 2002, he and Rebecca Blank founded the National Poverty Center here at the Ford School.
This April, dozens of phenomenally impressive poverty researchers—a more brilliant collaborative, caring, and diverse group for Sheldon’s tireless commitment to them as students and colleagues—flew in from distinguished universities across the country to help us celebrate Sheldon’s legacy.
Sheldon and his wife, Sandra K. Danziger, have created a new permanent endowment to support undergraduate and master's students pursuing unpaid or low paying summer internships in social welfare policy and research. Gifts to the Sandra and Sheldon Danziger Fund will honor Sheldon and his lifelong contributions to research and teaching.
Look for more on Sheldon and the Research and Training Program in Poverty and Public Policy in the fall edition of State & Hill.