2009: Carey Cavanaugh
Fellows in Residence
Ambassador Carey Cavanaugh, Director of the Patterson School of Diplomacy and
International Commerce at the University of Kentucky
Public Address: “Transforming Institutions to Meet 21st Century Diplomatic Challenges”
Shaw Hall, Melvin and Dollie Younts Conference Center, Furman University
Monday, March 23, 2009
Presented by the Riley Institute Advance Team
On March 23, 2009, the Riley Institute at Furman welcomed Ambassador Carey Cavanaugh, Director of the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce and professor of diplomacy and conflict resolution at the University of Kentucky, to campus. Ambassador Cavanaugh delivered an address, “Transforming Institutions to Meet 21st Century Diplomatic Challenges” on Monday, March 23rd in Shaw Hall, Melvin and Dollie Younts Conference Center, Furman University. This event was presented by the Riley Institute’s Advance Team.
About Ambassador Cavanaugh
Ambassador Cavanaugh returned to academia after a twenty-two year diplomatic career with the U.S. Department of State that focused on conflict resolution, political-military affairs and humanitarian issues.
In addition to Washington assignments in the State Department, Pentagon, and on Capitol Hill, Ambassador Cavanaugh served in Berlin, Moscow, Tbilisi, Rome, and Bern. In 1992, he established the first American Embassy to the new Republic of Georgia, serving as Charge d’Affaires. Under Presidents Clinton and Bush, Cavanaugh spearheaded or helped advance peace efforts involving Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Tajikistan and Turkey. In 2000, he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Ambassador/Special Negotiator responsible for conflicts in Eurasia and Co-Chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group. Later Cavanaugh was elected president of the State Department’s Senior Seminar and crisscrossed the globe as a team leader for the Office of the Inspector General. His final government assignment was foreign policy/political advisor to U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Mullen (the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff).
Cavanaugh was born in Jacksonville, Florida and raised in Atlantic Beach. He majored in Russian at the University of Florida, but shifted to international affairs and Soviet and East European Studies at the University of Notre Dame, with additional graduate work at the US Army Russian Institute in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. He and his wife Laura have two sons: Chase, a sophomore at Notre Dame, and Keith, an eighth grader at Lexington’s Sayre School. They live in Lexington, Kentucky.