Jeffrey Herbst
President, Colgate University

Jeffrey Herbst began his term as the 16th president of Colgate University on July 1, 2010. Herbst had served as provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and professor of political science at Miami University since 2005. He previously held posts at Princeton University, including service as acting associate dean of the Woodrow Wilson School and chair of the university’s Department of Politics.

As Miami’s provost, Herbst promoted internationalization by broadening the curriculum and expanding opportunities for study abroad, led efforts to increase access for students of limited means, promoted integrity on campus, and expanded the university’s outreach efforts in the community. During his time as provost, Herbst strengthened Miami’s long-standing commitment to undergraduate teaching and the liberal arts core.He also helped design the Miami Access Initiative, a program that provides all tuition and fees for students from families of limited means that has significantly increased socioeconomic diversity on campus. He worked with Miami's admission office to attract an unprecedented number of African-American applicants, raise the number of students from multicultural backgrounds to new highs, and increase the number of international students on campus several fold.

Herbst maintains an active research agenda, which focuses on the politics of sub-Saharan Africa, including peacekeeping, how the United States can promote democratic liberalization in Africa and what the international community can do to further economic growth in poor regions of the world. His scholarship has taken him throughout Africa, with significant time spent in Zimbabwe, Ghana, and South Africa. Herbst has consistently published and presented original research in his field. His book, States and Power in Africa, received the Gregory M. Luebbert Prize for the best book in comparative politics in 2000 from the Comparative Politics section of the American Political Science Association in August 2001. It was also a finalist for the 2001 Melville J. Herskovits Award for the best book in African studies awarded by the African Studies Association.

He has served as a consultant to a variety of international organizations and federal agencies, including the World Bank, the United Nations, and the U.S. State Department. He has received two Fulbright scholarships (for work in Zimbabwe and South Africa) and a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.

At Princeton, Herbst served in a number of administrative posts including chair of the faculty committee on study abroad, chair of the resources committee which advised the trustees on social issues related to the investment of the endowment, director of the African Studies Program, director of the Council on Regional Studies, member and chair of the editorial board of Princeton University Press, and acting associate dean of the Woodrow Wilson School. From 2000-2005, Herbst served as chair of the Department of Politics which, at that time, was the largest single major in the university.

Born in Jamaica, Queens, NY, Herbst graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1983 and went on to earn M.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees in political science from Yale University. He and his wife Sharon Polansky, a marketing executive, have three children.