Antoine M. Garibaldi is currently Grand Sire Archon (Chairman) of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity, the oldest predominantly Black Greek-letter organization in the world. He began his term on August 22, 2022. Prior to that he served as the University of Detroit Mercy’s 25th President from 2011 until 2022.
Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on September 26, 1950, Garibaldi is the sixth of nine children of longshoreman and Pullman Porter Augustin Garibaldi Sr., and civic and Catholic organizations volunteer Marie (Brulé) Garibaldi. He attended St. Augustine High School before going in 1964 to Epiphany Apostolic College in Newburgh, New York, a Catholic seminary of the Society of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart. He was a seminarian with the Josephite Fathers for eight and a half years.
Garibaldi graduated with a bachelor’s degree (magna cum laude) in sociology with a minor in philosophy from Howard University in Washington D.C. in 1973. He obtained his PhD in Educational Psychology in 1976 from the University of Minnesota, and was the third African American to receive a doctorate in that program.
Early in his career, Dr. Garibaldi was a fifth and sixth grade teacher in Washington D.C., and was Principal of the St. Paul, Minnesota Urban League Street Academy. From 1977 to 1982 he was an Educational Policy Fellow at the U.S. Department of Education’s National Institute of Education. Beginning In 1982, Dr. Garibaldi 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. From 1996 to 2000 he was the first Provost and Chief Academic Officer of his alma mater, Howard University.
In 2001 Dr. Garibaldi became the sixth President and the first African American President of Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania and in June 2011 he began his tenure as President of the University of Detroit Mercy. Serving until June 2022, he was the 25th President, its first African American President, and the third longest-serving president of Michigan’s largest Catholic university. At the time he was the only Black President in any of the 27 Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States.
The author of eleven books including Black Colleges and Universities: Challenges for the Future (1984) and The Education of African Americans (1991) as well as more than 100 research articles and book chapters, he has been a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association and the American Psychological Association. 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.
Dr. Garibaldi has chaired the boards of both the American Association for Higher Education and the 700-member Council of Independent Colleges. He currently chairs the Detroit Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau and Live6 Alliance; and is secretary of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation’s board.
Some of Dr. Garibaldi’s many awards include honorary doctorates from University of Holy Cross (Louisiana), Seton Hall University (New Jersey), Gannon University (Pennsylvania) and University of Saint Thomas (Minnesota). He has also received the Papal Honor of Knight of St. Gregory the Great from the Vatican. He was included in “The Detroit 500” by DBusiness magazine which recognizes metro Detroit and Michigan’s most powerful business leaders.
A Life Member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Dr. Garibaldi currently lives in Detroit, Michigan with his wife, Carol Jupiter Garibaldi.
