Dr. William J. Lennox, Jr.

Dr. William J. Lennox Jr. was named ninth president of Saint Leo University by the university’s Board of Trustees, effective July 1, 2015.

A retired U.S. Army three-star lieutenant general, Dr. Lennox earned his bachelor’s degree in international affairs from the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY. He went on to earn a master’s degree and a PhD in literature from Princeton University. He graduated first in his class at Fort Leavenworth’s Command and General Officer’s School, and he completed the Senior Service College Fellowship at Harvard University.

After graduating from West Point, General Lennox served in a wide variety of assignments in the field artillery. He also held a number of staff positions including a White House Fellowship, as the special assistant to the secretary of the Army, and as the executive officer for the deputy chief of staff for Operations and Plans.

Additionally, over the course of his distinguished 35-year military career, General Lennox served as the deputy commanding general and assistant commandant of the U.S. Army Field Artillery Center; the chief of staff for III Corps and Fort Hood; the assistant chief of staff, CJ-3, at Combined Forces Command/United States Forces Korea and the Deputy Commanding General, Eighth United States Army; as well as Chief of Legislative Liaison.

General Lennox became the superintendent of the United States Military Academy in 2001. As superintendent, a role that is essentially the equivalent of president of a civilian college, he managed 4,400 cadets, hundreds of staff, the academic programs, and a $250 million budget on the 16,000-acre campus, and remained there until 2006. During his tenure, he provided strategic guidance for the academic, military, and athletic initiatives. He helped transform the athletic program and oversaw upgrades to the core liberal arts program while sustaining the fourth-ranked undergraduate engineering program in the country. He also implemented and improved opportunities for cultural exposure and expanded semesters abroad to countries including Chile, China, Russia, and Spain.

From 2006 to 2012, Dr. Lennox served as senior vice president at Goodrich Corporation, a Fortune 500 aerospace firm, in Washington, DC. In that role, he was responsible for developing and executing strategy for the company’s Department of Defense programs and for interacting with Congress, the executive branch, state and local governments, and aerospace contractors. Dr. Lennox joined the Saint Leo University Board of Trustees in 2008 and has served as chair of the Academic Affairs Committee. He and his wife, Anne, have three sons.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
American War Poetry, PhD Dissertation, Princeton University, 1982
“China’s Peoples’ War: Old and New,” Military Review, December 1987
“Interview” Leader to Leader: Leadership Breakthrough from West Point, a special supplement to Leader to Leader, 2005
“Romance and Reality,” Poetry, April 2005
“U.S. Policy Toward the Korean Peninsula,” Council on Foreign Relations task force member, June 2010
China: Enemy or Friend? by Burn and Marc Loeffke, contributing author, January 2009
Why Gov. Cuomo’s Free Tuition Plan Hurts Private Colleges, RealClearEducation.com, May 2017.

SELECTED INTERVIEWS
Charlie Rose Show, PBS Interview, February 2002
Injoy Maximum Impact – Leadership Speaker, April 2004
Time magazine interview for cover story, May 2005

AFFILIATIONS
American Armed Forces Mutual Aid Association, Board of Directors
Council on Foreign Relations
Florida Council of 100, ex officio member 
Forum for the Future of Higher Education
Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce, Board of Directors
Independent Colleges and Universities of Florida, Treasurer
Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society
Princeton Power Systems, Board of Directors
Society of the French Legion of Honor
Tampa Bay Area Committee on Foreign Relations
U.S. University Presidents’ Summit on International Education
Universal Technical Institute, Board of Directors
West Point Association of Graduates, Distinguished Graduate, 2012
West Point Fund Raising Campaign, Cabinet Member
White House Fellows Association