Stanton bestows $5 million gift on CISAC for professor in nuclear studies

1 Stanton Frank Stanton, former president of CBS.

The Stanton Foundation has made a $5 million gift to the Center for International Security and Cooperation to establish the Frank Stanton Professorship in Nuclear Security and reinforce CISAC’s longstanding mission to build a safer world.

The endowed chair will allow Stanford to appoint an internationally recognized scholar to conduct research in nuclear security and energy, and related issues relevant to international arms control policy. The professor also will teach a course at CISAC related to nuclear security issues, enhancing CISAC’s mandate to advance interdisciplinary research on international security and cooperation, and to train the next generation of security specialists.

“How societies throughout the world handle nuclear security challenges will have a profound impact on our future,” said Tino Cuéllar, CISAC’s co-director and next director of its umbrella organization, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. “The Stanton chair will help CISAC, the Freeman Spogli Institute and Stanford continue a tradition going back three decades of being at the forefront in global efforts to understand nuclear energy and its enormous consequences for civilization.”

Former CBS president Frank Stanton established the foundation, which also funds CISAC’s Stanton Nuclear Security Fellowships for pre- and post-doctoral students and junior faculty who are studying policy-relevant issues related to nuclear security.

Stanton became actively engaged in international security issues in 1954 when President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed him to a committee to develop the first comprehensive plan for the nation’s survival following a nuclear attack. He was responsible for developing plans for international communications in the aftermath of a nuclear war.

"The Stanton Foundation has played a huge role, through its generous fellowship funding, to enable CISAC and other leading research institutions help train the next generation of nuclear security specialists,” said Scott Sagan, a political science professor and senior fellow at CISAC and FSI.

Sagan, co-author of “The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate,” and a scholar of nuclear nonproliferation and weapons of mass destruction, has been closely tied to the foundation since he served as CISAC co-director from 1998-2011 and helped to usher in the Stanton Nuclear Security Fellowship program.

“This gift from Stanton will ensure that CISAC's important role in policy-relevant research on nuclear issues will continue in perpetuity,” Sagan said.