title: Antoine Garibaldi
text: # Antoine Garibaldi
  
  Antoine Michael Garibaldi is president emeritus and distinguished university professor of University of Detroit Mercy. He was the 25th and first lay president of the University of Detroit Mercy in Detroit, Michigan. He is also the school's first African-American president and the first publicly acknowledged African American president of any Jesuit university in the United States since 1879 when Georgetown university was founded. He was appointed to the role in June 2011. He announced his decision to transition to president emeritus and distinguished university professor in August 2021, to go into effect the following July.
  
  ## Early life and education
  
  Garibaldi attended St. Joan of Arc Grammar School and attended St. Augustine High School’s second special eighth grade in New Orleans, Louisiana, his hometown, before attending Epiphany Apostolic College in [[Newburgh, New York, the Catholic seminary of the Society of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart (also known as The Josephite Fathers) in 1964. He was a seminarian with the Josephite Fathers for eight and a half years and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a minor in philosophy from [Howard University in Washington DC in 1973. He obtained his PhD in Educational Psychology in 1976 from the University of Minnesota. and was the third African African American to receive his doctorate from that program.
  
  ## Personal life
  
  Garibaldi is a Catholic, and was formerly a seminarian with the Josephites.
  
  