MACON – Mercer University's Department of International and Global Studies (IGS) began hosting former U.S. Ambassador to Mongolia Dr. Jonathan Addleton as a visiting professor this spring.
Dr. Addleton is teaching a section of the department's “Introduction to International Relations” course, which is a requirement for students with political science and international affairs majors.
“The International and Global Studies Department is both honored and excited to host someone with Ambassador Jonathan Addleton's varied and valuable experiences in the U.S. foreign service,” said Dr. Eimad Houry, professor and chair of international and global studies. “Dr. Addleton has agreed to teach one or two courses a term and to share his expertise, contacts and insights with students who are pursuing career interests in the international arena. We look forward to the new possibilities that Dr. Addleton will bring to IGS programs, like international affairs and global development studies, and the College of Liberal Arts.”
Born and raised in Pakistan, the son of Baptist missionaries from Macon, Dr. Addleton is a career foreign service officer with the rank of career minister. He retired in January following more than 30 years of service as U.S. Ambassador to Mongolia; senior civilian representative for Southern Afghanistan based in Kandahar; development counselor at the U.S. Mission to the European Union in Brussels; U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) mission director in India, Pakistan, Cambodia and the Central Asian Republics; and USAID program officer in Jordan, Yemen and South Africa.
“Given my longtime family ties to Macon, it is an honor to have this unexpected opportunity to teach at Mercer University, and hopefully also to help further strengthen its international connections,” said Dr. Addleton.
Prior to becoming a foreign service officer in 1984, he worked briefly at the World Bank, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and The Telegraph in Macon. He has also served on international school boards in Amman, Jordan; Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; and Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
His experiences in Afghanistan inspired his memoir, The Dust of Kandahar: A Diplomat Among Warriors in Afghanistan, which was published in 2016. He has written three other books, Mongolia and the United States: A Diplomatic History, Some Far and Distant Place and Undermining the Center: The Gulf Migration and Pakistan, and contributed articles to publications such as al-Mushir, Ambassadors Review, Asian Affairs, Asian Survey, Fletcher Forum, Foreign Service Journal, Mongolica, International Migration, Muslim World and The Washington Post.
Dr. Addleton was recently interviewed by Public Radio International (PRI) on the topic of growing dissent in the U.S. State Department in response to President Donald Trump's executive order to ban refugees and immigrants from several majority Muslim countries.
