Joseph Duffy - Board of Visitors - Office of the President

Board of Visitors
Joseph Duffy

Joseph Duffy Joseph Duffey, the senior vice president of Laureate Education, Inc (formerly Sylvan Learning Systems) since 1999, has focused on social and economic issues throughout his long and accomplished career in academia and public service. Duffey was a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars for 2003-2004 and, before joining Sylvan Learning Systems, served as director of the United States Information Agency for six years.

Duffey's other public service work has been wide-ranging. In 1991, he was the joint head of the U.S. delegation observing national elections in Ethiopia. Under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, he served as the assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs and as chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Duffy has been on the Council on Foreign Relations since 1979 and served as a U.S. delegate to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization from 1978 to 1980.

In his academic roles, Duffy became chancellor of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1982, and continued in that position even after being elected president of the four-campus University of Massachusetts system in 1989. Earlier in his career, he was a member of the Yale University faculty and a fellow of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Duffey has been a longtime supporter of the University System of Maryland in many roles.

A native of West Virginia and a graduate of Marshall University, Duffey holds graduate degrees from Yale University, Andover Newton Theological School, and the Hartford Seminary Foundation. He also holds 14 honorary degrees from American colleges and universities and, in 1993, Ritsemaken University in Japan awarded him an honorary Doctor of Letters. In 1980, the King of Belgium named him Commander of the Order of the Crown. Duffey is married to Ann Wexler and has four sons.