Sanford School of Public Policy
Duke University

Mike Schoenfeld (AB '84) (Ex-Officio), Vice President for Public Affairs and Government Relations, Durham, NC

Schoenfeld is the vice president for public affairs and government relations at Duke University. He serves on President Richard Brodhead’s senior leadership team and is the university’s chief communications strategist, advancing and managing public affairs and government relations programs in support of Duke’s mission.

Prior to coming to Duke, he was the vice chancellor for public affairs at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee where he functioned as the chief public, community and government relations officer and spokesman for Vanderbilt. He also taught a graduate course on crisis management in higher education. Prior to joining Vanderbilt, Schoenfeld was senior vice president for policy and public affairs at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) in Washington, D.C.  He was also the director of program development at Worldnet, the United States Information Agency’s global satellite television network, and was chief of staff for the director of the Voice of America.

He serves as president of the boards of the University School of Nashville and the Tennessee Repertory Theater, and on the boards of the Center for Nonprofit Management, WPLN-Nashville Public Radio, the Nashville Public Library and the Nashville Alliance for Public Education. Twice Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce honored him with its Volunteer of the Year Award. Schoenfeld’s many activities include several years of service on Duke Magazine’s Editorial Advisory Board. He holds leadership roles with the National Academy for Media Arts and Sciences, the Public Relations Society of America, and the Association of American Universities, and previously served on the board of the National Association of College and University Business Officers, and the CASE Commission on Communications. Schoenfeld will serve as general chairman of the 2009 CASE Senior Summit, the largest annual gathering of educational advancement leaders.

Schoenfeld earned a master’s degree in public policy from the Harriman School at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He and his wife, Elizabeth, met as undergraduates at Duke, where Schoenfeld majored in public policy studies. They have one daughter, Abby.

Class on the Sanford Building Lawn