Jeffrey I. Herbst is the 16th president of Colgate University,[1] taking office July 1, 2010. He was the former Provost, Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, and professor of political science at Miami University. He received his B.A. from Princeton University in 1983, M.A., M.Phil from Yale University in 1985, and Ph.D. in 1987 also from Yale. He is married to Sharon Polansky, with whom he has three children, Matthew, Spencer, and Alana.
Herbst has also written extensively on political and international affairs in Africa, an area of inquiry in which he has published two books. States and Power in Africa, received the Gregory M. Luebbert Prize for the best book in comparative politics for the year 2000 from 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. [2]