National Council for Research on Women

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Alison R. Bernstein

Alison R. Bernstein was appointed The Ford Foundation’s Vice President for the Knowledge, Creativity and Freedom Program (KC&F) in 1996. She joined the Foundation in 1982 as a Program Officer and subsequently served as Director of the Education and Culture Program from 1992-1996. A former Associate Dean of Faculty at Princeton University, Bernstein is the author of three books, American Indians and World War II: Towards a New Era in Indian Affairs (University of Oklahoma Press, 1991; paperback, 1999); with Virginia B. Smith, The Impersonal Campus (Jossey-Bass, 1979) and, with Jacklyn Cock, Melting Pots and Rainbow Nations: Conversations about Difference in the United States and South Africa (University of Illinois Press, 2002).

Bernstein has published articles in the Teachers College Record, Signs: A Journal on Women and Culture,The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Tikkun on issues related to students: transfer from community colleges to four-year institutions, access to higher education for women and minorities, diversity on campus, and the impact of women’s studies. She graduated from Vassar College, and received a Ph.D. and an M.A. in history from Columbia University.

A former member of the Presidential Advisory Board on Tribal Colleges and Universities and the Board of Advisors to the Smithsonian Institution - National Museum of American History, Bernstein is currently a Contributing Editor to Change Magazine, and serves on the Board of Project Pericles and the International Fellowships Fund.