Jonathan Fanton

  • Jonathan Fanton is a Franklin D. Roosevelt Visiting Fellow at Hunter College and was President of The MacArthur Foundation from 1999-2009.  Mr. Fanton holds a Ph.D in American History from Yale University where he taught and was Chief of Staff to President Kingman Brewster.  He was Vice President of Planning at The University of Chicago and for 17 years was President of The New School for Social Research.

    He is past Chair of Human Rights Watch, Security Council Report, The Union Square Development Corporation, The Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in New York, and was also an Advisory Trustee at the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation.   He is currently Chair of the Africa Advisory Committee for Human Rights Watch, Chair of Scholars At Risk, and on the Boards of Research Alliance, Common Cause, and the Asian Cultural Council.

    He is author of Foundations and Civil Society, Volume I and II (2008), and The University and Civil Society, Volume I and II (1995, 2002).