Dr. Antoine M. Garibaldi is the 25th president and first lay president of University of Detroit Mercy. Founded in 1877 as University of Detroit by the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), University of Detroit consolidated in 1990 with Mercy College of Detroit, which was founded in 1941 by the Religious Sisters of Mercy. Detroit Mercy is the largest Catholic university in Michigan, with three campuses in Detroit. It enrolls close to 5,000 students in more than 100 undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs, including architecture, dentistry, and law.

Prior to joining University of Detroit Mercy in 2011, Dr. Garibaldi was president of Gannon University in Erie, PA for nine and a half years; Howard University's first Provost and Chief Academic Officer in Washington, DC; and Chairman of the Education Department, Dean of Arts and Sciences, and first lay Vice President for Academic Affairs at Xavier University of Louisiana. He was also an Educational Policy Fellow and Research Associate at the National Institute of Education in the former Office of Education (HEW) and new U.S. Department of Education, where he was a staff member of the National Commission on Excellence in Education, which produced the landmark report, A Nation at Risk.

Dr. Garibaldi is a tenured Professor of Educational Psychology, the author of 11 books and more than 85 research articles and chapters, and a Fellow of both the American Psychological Association and the American Educational Research Association. He has received four honorary doctorates and is nationally known for increasing enrollment, exceeding fundraising goals, and developing significant collaborations with local communities, government agencies, and philanthropic and non-profit organizations at each of the four universities where he has been a professor and senior administrator.

Nationally recognized as a leader in higher education organizations, Dr. Garibaldi currently serves or has served on the boards of five of the six major college and university associations in Washington, DC. He currently serves on the boards of the Association of Governing Boards' (AGB) Council of Presidents; Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities' (AJCU) Executive Committee; Georgetown University; Horizon League Athletic Conference, which he chaired from 2013 to 2015; Michigan Independent Colleges & Universities (MICU) Executive Committee; and University of Saint Thomas (MN). Locally, he serves on the boards of the Cardinal Club; Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA); New Detroit, Inc.; Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau; Detroit Police Chief's Citizens Advisory Board; Invest Detroit; Live6 Alliance; and Brother Rice High School. In 2015, he was named one of the "100 Most Connected People in Detroit" by Crain's Detroit Business.

A native of New Orleans, Dr. Garibaldi received his B.A. magna cum laude from Howard University and his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Minnesota.