Steven C. Rockefeller

Steven C. Rockefeller (born 1936) is the second oldest son of former United States Vice President Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller and his first wife, Mary Rockefeller; he is a fourth-generation member of the Rockefeller family.

Rockefeller received his AB from Princeton University, where he was president of The Ivy Club, his Master of Divinity from the Union Theological Seminary in New York City and a Ph.D. in philosophy of religion from Columbia University. He is currently Professor Emeritus of Religion at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont where he previously served as Dean of the College and chairman of the religion department.

In 1976 he began an intensive study of Zen Buddhism, making frequent week long visits to the Zen Center in Rochester, where he was a trustee. He has edited and authored a number of books:

* "The Christ and the Bodhisattva" (Suny Series in Buddhist Studies). Edited by Donald S. Lopez, Jr., and Steven C. Rockefeller. State University of New York Press (1987)
* Rockefeller, Steven C. "John Dewey: Religious Faith and Democratic Humanism". Columbia University Press (1991)
* "Spirit and Nature -- Why the Environment Is a Religious Issue: An Interfaith Dialogue". Edited by Steven C. Rockefeller and John C. Elder. Beacon Press (1992).

His personal philosophy focuses on education, which includes support for Planned Parenthood and contributions to human-rights and environmental causes. He was at one time directly involved with the Wendell Gilley Museum, a small institution on Mount Desert Island in Maine that houses one of the world's great collections of wooden carvings of American birds.

He coordinated the drafting of the Earth Charter for the Earth Charter Commission and Earth Council. In 2005 he moderated the International Launch of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) (2005-2014) in its headquarters in New York, launched by UNESCO and attended by Nane Annan, the wife of Secretary General Kofi Annan. [http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=37988&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html]

Rockefeller is active in the field of philanthropy and is a trustee of the Asian Cultural Council and an advisory trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. He has also served as a director of the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

In 1959 he married Anne Marie Rasmussen in Søgne, Norway. Anne Marie was a former au pair in the Rockefeller household, to whom he had three children. They divorced. He married a second time; they have one child. His wife now is Barbara (nee Bellows) Rockefeller.

ee also

* Rockefeller family
* Nelson Rockefeller
* Rockefeller Brothers Fund
* United Nations

Further reading

* Rasmussen, Anne-Marie. "There was Once a Time of Islands, Illusions, and Rockefellers". New York and London: Harcourt Brace, 1975.

External links

* [http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F50D1EF93A5C0C738FDDAB0994DC484D81 "The Cousins"] A 1984 "New York Times" (TimesSelect) profile of prominent members of the fourth-generation Rockefellers.
* [http://www.rbf.org/about/trustees.html Rockefeller Brothers Fund website]