Slaughter ’80 to leave University; will head public-policy think tank

Anne-Marie Slaughter ’80 is leaving Princeton to become ­president of the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan public-policy think tank.

Slaughter, a politics professor and former dean of the Woodrow Wilson School who has become a leading voice in the debate over women’s leadership and work/life balance, told PAW that the new position, announced April 3, will enable her “to keep writing and speaking about important issues in both foreign policy and social policy.”

In a message to the Wilson School community, she explained, “It is time for me to move one step closer to putting ideas into action.” The foundation has about 140 staff members and ­fellows and an annual budget of $20 million.

Slaughter said the position, which starts Sept. 1, will permit her to have a flexible work schedule, something she had deemed essential for working women in her much-discussed July 2012 Atlantic article, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” She will work from the foundation’s New York City office and spend “a couple of days a week” in its Washington, D.C., office, she said.

Slaughter joined Princeton’s faculty in 2002, and took a leave from 2009 to 2011 to serve as director of policy ­planning for the State Department. She will become a professor emerita at the ­University.

“I am very sorry to leave Princeton,” she said, “but it’s time for a new ­adventure.”