Professor Sanford J. Ungar stepped down as president of Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 30, 2014, after thirteen years of service. Under his leadership, Goucher became the first traditional liberal arts college in the United States to require every undergraduate to study abroad. He is now a distinguished scholar in residence at Georgetown University, and a visiting lecturer at Harvard College, where he is teaching a Freshman Seminar on “Free Speech.”
Before becoming the tenth president of Goucher in 2001, Professor Ungar was director of the Voice of America, and he previously served as dean of the School of Communication at American University.
During his career as a journalist, Professor Ungar was a staff writer for The Washington Post, managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine, Washington editor of The Atlantic, and host of “All Things Considered” on National Public Radio. He was a correspondent in Paris for United Press International, and in Nairobi for Newsweek. He has also written for The New York Times Magazine, The Economist, Foreign Affairs, Columbia Journalism Review, and New York magazine; he is the author or editor of six nonfiction books.
Fluent in French and Spanish, Professor Ungar has spoken frequently around the world on issues of American foreign policy and domestic politics, free expression, human rights, and immigration.
Professor Ungar obtained his A.B. in Government from Harvard College and a Master's degree in International History from the London School of Economics. He has received honorary doctorates from Goucher and from Wilkes University. He serves on the boards of the Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies; Collegiate Directions, Inc.; and IAU. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the U.S. Public Interest Declassification Board.
Professor Ungar has served on the IAU Board since 2014.