DR. KAREN HEIN DMS’68
Karen Hein, MD is Immediate Past President of the William T. Grant
Foundation (1998-2003). Dr. Hein was the Executive Officer of the Institute of
Medicine (National Academy of Sciences) from December 30, 1994 to June 30,
1998. She is Professor of Epidemiology and Pop'n Health and (Clinical)
Pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. From l993-l994
she worked on health care reform as a member of the Senate Finance Committee
staff in Washington, D.C., drafting legislation related to health benefits,
workforce, and financing medical education and academic health centers. She
currently serves on 9 non-profit boards as part of her humanitarian work,
focusing on Asia and Africa.
Dr. Hein graduated from the University of Wisconsin (l966), attended
Dartmouth Medical School (l966-l968) and received her medical degree from
Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons in l970. She was one of
the founding members of the Dartmouth Medical School Board of Overseers
(1973-1978).
During the past 30 years, Dr. Hein has assumed a variety of roles related to
health and health policy through her activities in program development,
teaching and clinical research. She directed a model program for health care of
juvenile detainees. In l987, she founded the nation's first adolescent HIV/AIDS
program. She worked closely with the Board of Education to expand AIDS
education to the million students in the New York City public school system.
She has written over l50 articles, chapters and abstracts related to adolescent
health, particularly focusing on high risk youth. Her book, AIDS: Trading Fears
for Facts, has sold over 100,000 volumes.
As President of the William T. Grant Foundation, she has shaped the current
focus of the Foundation's efforts to "help create a society that values young
people and enables them to reach their full potential." With assets of $250
million, the Foundation pursues this goal by investing in research and in
people and projects that use evidence-based approaches. Under her leadership,
the Foundation has celebrated the appointment of the 100th W.T. Grant Scholar
in 2002 and instituted the W.T. Grant Prize for collaboration among scholars
and practitioners in 2003.
Dr. Hein has served as advisor to many city, state, federal and
international organizations. She was President of the Society for Adolescent
Medicine in l992. She has been a recipient of several awards including an
Assistant Secretary for Health Award (DHHS) in l989, Health Care Financing
Administrator's Award (HCFA) in l993 and Stewart B. McKinney Foundation in l994
for leadership in the HIV epidemic; 2nd Century Award from CU Nursing School
2005.
In the fall of 2003, Dr. Hein shifted her activities to promote global peace
through volunteer work in international health and youth development, focusing
currently on Asia and Africa. In 2004-06, she participated in post-tsunami
relief work in India designing health assessments in Child Centered Spaces, as
well as visiting and evaluating projects in East & Central Africa (Uganda,
Ethiopia, Rwanda), Southern Africa (Malawi, Mozambique), and Burmese &
African refugee camps in '06 . She is currently a Board member of 9 national
and international organizations, including The National Board of Medical
Examiners, RAND Health Advisory Board, Consumers Union, CCF, Child Fund Int'l,
and The Int'l Rescue Committee Overseers.
Thomas Wahman ‘60
Dartmouth College: 1956-60
- Participation in the activities of the Dartmouth Christian Union (President
senior year)
- Visit to veterans, winter assistance for elderly, youth activities for
“hidden poor”
Union Theological Seminary: 1960-64
- Church of the Sea and Land on the Lower East Side
- Youth groups (African American and Latinos)
- Participated in Civil Rights Demonstrations in New York in support of
sit-ins and against discriminatory hiring practices
- Eight-hour sit-in at the South African consulate to protest the events of
the Sharpeville Massacre.
New York University: 1964-66, Coordinator of Religious and Civil Rights
Activities
- Managed Altschul House, where Jewish, Roman Catholic and Protestant groups
conducted religious services
- Created tutoring program for poor and minority school children
- Obtained authorization and initial funding for a new Lincoln Hospital
- Served as sponsor and organizer for the second Teach-In in US on Viet Nam
War
- Recruited students and faculty to attend the Congress on Unrepresented
People
- Served as Statewide Coordinator of the Freedom Schools in Mississippi
New York Foundation: 1966-68
- Researched and recommended series of grants in support of the CRM in South
and suggested contributions for civil rights work in New York City—Most
supported voter rights projects.
Rockefeller Family Philanthropic Office: 1968-1988
- Responsible for the “Southern Program” in support of civil rights and
related issues
- Annual support for the Southern Regional Council’s region-wide Voter
Education Project
- Expanded the ACLU Foundation’s litigation to overturn discriminatory
election laws
- Supported NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s cooperating attorney training and
placement program in the South.
- Supported the ACLU Foundation’s “Operation Southern Justice”
- Provided several annual grants to community economic development and
job-creation organizations in the south, mostly African American
- Equal Rights and Opportunities Program
- Supported new civil and human rights organizations that extended and
adapted strategies developed by the ACLU, NAACP, etc.
- Supported welfare reform, state and national level, led by National Welfare
Rights Organization and National Urban Coalition
- Supported community economic development policy initiatives, drawing upon
“lessons learned” in low-income Black, Latino and white areas
- Supported planning and launching of the Development Training Institute
- Provided grants for litigation, monitoring, advocacy and policy revision to
correct gross imbalances in fed. and state funding programs (experienced by AA
& Lat)
- Support for Emergency Land Fund
- 1982 Renewal of 1965 Voting Rights Act
- Investigated support to improve the prospects of voter law in the US
- Rockefeller Brothers Fund
- Advised Rockefeller investments which lead to the financial support of
Southern Cooperative Fund.
- In the international arena
- Identified and supported ways to reduce the destruction of natural
resources in poor countries
- Linked well-off conservation orgs. in developed countries with their poorer
counterparts
- Winthrop Rockefeller Charitable Trust
- Creations of Winrock International Livestock and Research Training Center
to improve animal agriculture in developing countries.
- Creation of Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation – Programs included Economic
Development; Education; and Economic, Racial and Social Justice.
Tabor-Wahman, Ltd. 1983-2003, Consultant
- Worked with organizations to create or expand programs in support of social
and economic justice, including the sustainable use of natural resources.
Quotes:
“Wahman- you were always a man of few words, so I was glad to see you have
come out of you shell and put some of what you did for the Civil Rights
Movement on paper. I was not fully aware of how you and Bob Scrivner took what
you learned in the South and broadened it to other parts of the country. And I
see your international work also included the poor as a central focus, whether
you were defining conservation strategies, creating environmental programs or
trying to change the lending practices of the World Bank.”
“When I took over, in the midst of a general financial crisis bordering on
bankruptcy, every ACLU program was a candidate for cuts, especially those that
depended on restricted foundation grants, as did the Voting Rights Project of
the SRO. Without your steadfast support via RBF, that project which at the time
was responsible for nearly all Section 5 VRA litigation outside Mississippi
where Frank Parker worked would have collapsed. I cannot tell you how many
times in those early years I lauded your critical role in the ACLU Foundation
Board.”
“Moreover, that meeting hosted by Dodds at Ford had all the potential for
cutthroat and dysfunctional competition—with every relevant civil rights
organization trying to support its own budget in a room with every significant
civil rights funding source. Instead, due largely to the way the meeting was
planned and organized by you and the others; it became for me the main example
I used over the years to illustrate what could be accomplished by putting aside
narrow competitive interests and pulling together against a common
adversary.”
“I can vouch fro the fact that you were instrumental in helping Latino
groups in our struggle for funding.”
“The initial support provided by RDF, and more importantly, the faith and
moral support you personally provided during the initial years of Alternative
Energy Development, Inc. were and remain an important part of my
motivation.”
“I have another comment about the bio. I feel it understates your
astonishing ability to be an “agent of change” in making institutions behave
differently, in the pursuit of a strategic objective. That role is hidden
between the lines, so to speak. One example of which I am aware: You
single-handedly made it possible for the “Biomass Users Network” to be
created.”
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