Antoine M. Garibaldi

Degrees

• Ph.D. in Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota (Major: Educational Psychology, Minor: Social Psychology)
• B.A., Howard University (Major: Sociology, Minor: Philosophy) Magna Cum Laude

Biography

Antoine M. Garibaldi is President Emeritus and Distinguished University Professor of University of Detroit Mercy. In addition to being the 25th and third longest-serving president of Michigan’s largest Catholic university from June 2011 through June 2022, he was the university’s first layperson and first African American president since 1877. His presidential selection also made more than two hundred and twenty-two years of history when he became the first publicly acknowledged African American president of the 27 Jesuit colleges and universities in America since 1789. Detroit Mercy’s Board of Trustees awarded him the title of President Emeritus in recognition of his extensive administrative accomplishments, contributions to the Detroit community and city and his long tenure. He is the first to hold the title of Distinguished University Professor largely due to his more than four decades as a tenured professor and active scholar in educational psychology. The author of eleven books and more than 100 research articles and book chapters, he has been a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association and the American Psychological Association for decades. In April 2023, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the first Detroit Mercy faculty member or administrator to receive the honor.

University of Detroit Mercy was founded as University of Detroit in 1877 by the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) and consolidated in 1990 with Mercy College of Detroit, which was established in 1941 by the Religious Sisters of Mercy. A doctoral/professional university with more than 5,000 students, the university has four campuses and more than 100 undergraduate, graduate and professional programs, including Architecture, Dentistry and Law.

During President Emeritus Garibaldi’s more than 11 years of leadership, Detroit Mercy’s enrollment, retention and graduation rates increased, and its financial position strengthened. The university’s national and regional academic profile concurrently soared in U.S. News & World Report’s annual “Best Colleges” and was among the top twenty percent of the country’s 5,000 colleges and universities selected for ranking in the new Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education. U.S. News & World Report elevated Detroit Mercy to the “Best National Universities” category in 2019; and in his final year as president, the university ranked 187 and one of only four universities in Michigan among the top 200 in the nation in U.S. News’s 2022 edition. Several undergraduate and graduate programs also received high rankings as well as recognition in the categories of Best Value Schools, Best Schools for Veterans, and Top Performers on Social Mobility. Detroit Mercy also placed in the top quartile (No. 202) of the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education, which ranked only one-fifth of all universities.

Nationally regarded for his prolific fundraising at several universities, during his leadership at Detroit Mercy he obtained more than $215 million, which included exceeding a historic $100 million comprehensive campaign by $14.6 million, as well as more than $60 million from foundations, corporations, and federal and state governments. In his final year, a record $20.2 million was raised, the largest amount ever from alumni and friends of the university. In 2021, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) selected Detroit Mercy and only two other independent universities to receive its 2020 Educational Fundraising Award in Overall Performance for its “exceptional fundraising over the previous three years.” The award also recognized the university’s significant increase in alumni gifts and its successful campaign. Detroit Mercy’s endowment also nearly quadrupled to $100 million during his presidency. Other significant achievements during his tenure included investments of more than $82 million in facilities renovation, new construction and the acquisition of a new campus in Novi, Michigan; the development and implementation of innovative enrollment-focused programs such as the University of Detroit Mercy Catholic Education Grant and the 2018 undergraduate and tuition re-set; the Build a Boundless Future re-branding and marketing program; and the 2017-19 comprehensive visioning initiative, Detroit Mercy 2020: Envisioning a Boundless Future, which provided a voluntary early separation incentive for employees; attainment of a two-year $20 million institutional budget reduction goal; a university-wide academic program review that led to the new Master‘s Entry Advanced Generalist Nursing degree  and the April 2021 doctor of optometry degree application to the Accreditation Council on Optometric Education; and extensive assessments of campus facilities use. The latter review reduced deferred maintenance on the McNichols Campus by $50 million with the construction of a $15 million addition to the Student Union that relocated administrative offices from the Fisher Administration Center.

In addition to campus-based accomplishments, President Emeritus Garibaldi is widely recognized for establishing multiple new initiatives and partnerships with Detroit neighborhoods, especially Live6 Alliance, an economic development organization he co-founded with The Kresge Foundation in 2015. He continues to serve as its founding board chair. Highlights of his presidency are featured in a special April 2022 publication, Catalyst for Transformation.

Prior to Detroit Mercy, Dr. Garibaldi was the sixth and first African American president of Gannon University, a Catholic diocesan university, for nine and a half years. During his successful tenure at Gannon, enrollment increased by 24 percent to more than 4,200 students; the endowment more than doubled; and more than thirty buildings were renovated, constructed and acquired. He also raised the largest comprehensive campaign amount at that time, $40 million; and he obtained several multi-million dollar grants from foundations and federal and state agencies. He also founded the non-profit Erie Technology Incubator at Gannon University with a $5 million Pennsylvania state grant. Gannon was ranked for seven consecutive years in the top tier of Best Regional Universities in the North by U.S. News & World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges” from 2005-2011, and in the Great Schools, Great Prices category for five years and as a Top Up-and-Coming School in 2009.

In 1996, Dr. Garibaldi was selected as the first Provost and Chief Academic Officer of his alma mater, Howard University, since the university’s founding in 1867. Before Howard, he served for nearly fifteen years as Xavier University of Louisiana’s Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dean of Arts and Sciences and Chair of the Education Department. A tenured Professor of Educational Psychology since 1988, he was a Senior Fellow in the Office of the Vice President for Collaborations and Corporate Secretary at the Educational Testing Service and an Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) Educational Policy Fellow and research administrator at the U.S. Department of Education’s National Institute of Education, where he was also a staff member of the National Commission on Excellence in Education, which produced the landmark report, A Nation at Risk.

In addition to his scholarly writing and research on numerous educational topics, his expertise has been utilized as an expert witness in the Alabama and Mississippi higher education desegregation cases. He is nationally recognized for his leadership and service on the boards of more than a hundred non-profit organizations, national higher education associations, and universities, including Georgetown, Seton Hall, University of St. Thomas and the former Wheeling Jesuit (now Wheeling) University. He has chaired the boards of the more than 700-member Council of Independent Colleges and the former American Association for Higher Education, is the immediate past chair of the Detroit Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau (Visit Detroit) and is secretary of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation’s board.

A selective list of his many awards includes honorary doctorates from University of Holy Cross (LA), Seton Hall University, Gannon University and University of Saint Thomas (MN); University of Minnesota’s Outstanding Achievement Award; Howard University’s Alumni Award for Distinguished Postgraduate Achievement; the Papal Honor of Knight of St. Gregory the Great; the International Salute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s National Service Award; and Crain’s Detroit Business “100 Most Connected People in Detroit” and DBusiness magazine’s “The Detroit 500,” which recognizes metro Detroit and Michigan’s most powerful business leaders. Between 2022 and 2024, he served as Grand Sire Archon (president) of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity, the oldest international African American fraternity also known as “The Boulé.” He is also a Life Member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.

A native of New Orleans, he received his undergraduate degree magna cum laude in Sociology from Howard University and his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Minnesota.

On October 30, 2023, President Emeritus gave Georgetown University’s Aims of Education Address at its annual Faculty Convocation. The ceremony honors newly tenured and promoted Georgetown Faculty. Georgetown President DeGioia’s introduction of him begins at 36:30 in the program. You can view the program here.