Heading the Rockefeller Foundation is probably the perfect new job for former University President Judith Rodin. She gets to hear about hundreds of projects that will help the disadvantaged people of the world. And instead of raising money, like she did at Penn, Rodin finally gets to give it away.
"Continuing to focus in areas that really could advance the lives of the poor and excluded will be my overall mission," Rodin said. "It's a very challenging mandate but one that has had tremendous impact worldwide."
After more than a decade at Penn, Rodin took over as the president of the New York-based Rockefeller Foundation in March. The foundation provides grants for projects that "use scientifically based knowledge to tackle the root causes of poverty," Rodin said.
For example, the foundation just gave $60,000 to the African Council for Sustainable Health Development to help bring African representatives to a health conference in Nigeria.
As president of the foundation, Rodin will help define its broad goals and make sure that the grants it issues match up with them.
"We really want to sharpen and more strategically align some of these overarching goals with the grants that we actually make on the ground," Rodin said.
She noted that the foundation would be focusing in particular on ensuring that impoverished people benefit from globalization and an increasingly international community.
Rodin moved to New York earlier this year, and while she is impressed with the city's size -- her office looks out on the Empire State Building -- she is a Philadelphian at heart. She said she misses interacting with students and the excitement of campus life.
But she has family ties in Philadelphia -- her son is a law student at Penn -- and she plans to visit regularly. And Rodin's experience at Penn, she said, is guiding her in her new position.
During her tenure as University president, Penn officials led an effort to revive the West Philadelphia economy and community. This, she said, prepared her for the type of charity work she now focuses on.
"I led that effort to revitalize the local community" in West Philadelphia, Rodin said. "A good deal of Rockefeller's domestic work is in community revitalization."
She also helped the University develop mechanisms for annual self-evaluation, which she plans to use now at the foundation.
"Penn made a lot of progress during that 10 years as a result of that very determined self-scrutiny and self-evaluation," she said. "I bring that same discipline and mindset to the Rockefeller Foundation."
But more than anything, Rodin said her experiences in academia will be the best preparation for her new work.
"Penn's steadfast attention to the creation and advancement of knowledge and the belief that knowledge ought to be a benefit to society" is similar to the foundation's mission, Rodin said.
And those who work closely with Rodin call her "dynamic" and "very sharp."
Julia Lopez, who is the foundation's senior vice president and works closely with Rodin, said the former president's background in social psychology -- Rodin worked for years as a professor of psychology before becoming Penn's president -- will provide a strong backbone for her new career.
"When you're working on issues of poverty and exclusion, it really ultimately is about understanding what's happening to people in their contexts," Lopez said. "She really shares the vision and the mission of the foundation."
