Stephen Edward Scarff Visiting Professors, 1989-2023
1989-90
McGeorge Bundy
National security advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson
1990-91
Edgar Fiedler
Assistant security of the treasury for economic policy
1991-92
Jiri Vykoukal
Professor/scholar of East European history at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Prague
1992-93
Richard Parker
Ambassador to Lebanon, Algeria, Morocco
1993-94
Donald Leidel
Ambassador to Bahrain/deputy director of management operations for the Department of State
1994-95
Karl Scheld
Senior vice-president/director of research, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
1995-96
William Sloane Coffin, Jr.
Civil rights and peace activist
1997-98
David H. Swartz
Ambassador to the Republic of Belarus
1998-99
G. Jonathan Greenwald
Minister-counselor to the European Union at the U.S. mission in Brussels
2000-01
Takakazu Kuriyama
Ambassador of Japan to the United States
2001-02
Charles Ahlgren
Retired diplomat and educator
2002-04
George Meyer
Former secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
2007-08
Robert Lee Suettinger ’68
Intelligence analyst and China policy expert
2008-09
Robert (Todd) Becker
Former U.S. foreign service officer and deputy head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Mission in Croatia.
2009-10
George Wyeth ‘73
Director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Policy and Program Change Division.
2010-11
Rudolf Perina
Former U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Moldova (1998-2001), head of the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade in the mid-1990s and U.S. Special Negotiator for Eurasian Conflicts, 2001-04. Spent 35 years as U.S. foreign service officer, retiring in 2006.
2011-12
Alexander Wilde ‘62
Senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., former director of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), an independent nongovernmental organization concerned with human rights and U.S. foreign policy.
2012-13
Russ Feingold
Former United States Senator from Wisconsin
2013-14
Alexander Wilde '62
Senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., former director of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), an independent nongovernmental organization concerned with human rights and U.S. foreign policy.
2015-16
George Rupp
Former President of the International Rescue Committee, the largest refugee resettlement organization in the world. Before leading the IRC he was president of Columbia and Rice Universities and Dean of the Harvard Divinity School.
2016-17
Christopher Murray '75
Most recently served as political advisor to the Supreme Commander of NATO forces. Prior to that he was the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of the Congo.
2017-18
William Baer '72 and Nancy Hendry
Baer recently stepped down as Associate Attorney General in the Obama Administration. Previously, he was Assistant Attorney General for the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division. Hendry is senior advisor to the International Association of Women Judges where her focus is on sexual harassment law. They are married and both graduated from Stanford Law School.
2018-2019
Paul Schmidt ‘70
Paul was appointed as an Immigration Judge at the U.S. Immigration Court in Arlington, Virginia, in May 2003 and retired from the bench on June 30, 2016. Prior to his appointment as an Immigration Judge, he served as a Board Member for the Board of Immigration Appeals, Executive Office for Immigration Review. Judge Schmidt served as Board Chairman from February 1995 until April 2001, when he chose to step down as Chairman to adjudicate cases full-time. While on the court, Paul authored the landmark decision Matter of Kasinga (1996), extending asylum protection to victims of female genital mutilation.
2019-2021
Shaun Donnelly ‘68
Shaun had a long and distinguished career in foreign service including serving as Ambassador to Sri Lanka from 1997 to 2000. Shaun was scheduled to serve as the Stephen Edward Scarff Visiting Professor during Spring Term 2020. Due to the COVID pandemic, he participated remotely in classes in Spring 2020 and gave a public lecture via Zoom. In Fall 2021, he visited campus to lead discussions in government and economics classes and to work with students who are interested in careers in foreign service.
2022-2023
Elizabeth Schackelford
Shackelford currently serves on the Chicago Council on Global Affairs as senior fellow on US foreign policy. Shackelford’s commentary, research, and publications focus on “building awareness and understanding of a ‘restraint’ approach to foreign policy”, an approach that favors strengthening diplomatic engagement while limiting the use of military force in foreign policy. Her career in diplomacy has taken her to Somalia, Kenya, South Sudan, Poland, and Washington, D.C.