
Reuben E. Brigety II is Vice Chancellor and President of the University of the South (Sewanee). From 2015 until 2020, he was Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. He served for two years as the U.S. Ambassador to the African Union in the Obama Administration. In that role, he managed the strategic partnership between the U.S and the African Union with an emphasis on democracy and governance, economic growth, and development. Before his ambassadorship, he held a number of other positions in the Department of State and was Permanent Representative of the U.S. to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. President Brigety is a 1995 distinguished midshipman graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, where he earned a B.S. in political science (with merit). He holds an M.Phil. and Ph.D. in international relations from the University of Cambridge, England. His public lecture keynoting Washington and Lee's 2020-21 series on "Global Ethics in the 21st Century" was entitled "Black Lives Matter: An International Moment."