Speakers
James Piereson
President, William E. Simon Foundation and vice chairman, The Philanthropy Roundtable
James Piereson is president of the William E. Simon Foundation, and 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 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 Donors Trust. 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 has also publishes 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. From 1985 through 2005, Mr. Piereson was executive director and trustee of the John M. Olin Foundation until its remaining assets were disbursed and its doors closed. He previously 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 field of United States government and political theory.
