 He continued work toward a Ph.D, but left before completion in 1981 to accept a tenure-track position teaching international affairs and Soviet and East European studies at Youngstown State University in Ohio.In the summer of 1982 he was an intern and in 1983 a visiting researcher at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich.Cavanaugh later attended the U.S. Army Russian Institute (today the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies) in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany in 1988 - 1989 and was a fellow of MIT's Center for International Studies' Seminar XXI in 1994-1995.