Sanford J. Ungar

Sanford J. "Sandy" Ungar (born 1945) is an American journalist, author, and the inaugural director of the Free Speech Project at Georgetown University. He was the tenth president of Goucher College and the 24th director of Voice of America.

Early life and education Ungar was born in 1945, the youngest of five children. His mother, Tillie Landau, born 1901 in Chrenif, a small village near Lviv, Ukraine, (then the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia) to a Jewish family; in 1908, the seven year-old Tillie immigrated with her family to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to escape the poverty of her shtetl.

Career Upon completing graduate school, Ungar lived outside of the United States for three years. He initially intended to become a lawyer before becoming interested in "international opportunities." In 1975, he published FBI: An Uncensored Look Behind the Walls.

From 1980 to 1982, he was the weekday host of NPR's All Things Considered. In 1998, Ungar published Fresh Blood: The New American Immigrants. The following year he published another, Africa: The People and Politics of an Emerging Continent.

Ungar was the 24th director of the Voice of America, the U.S. government's principal international broadcasting agency, from 1999 to 2001. In that capacity, he oversaw more than 900 hours a week of VOA broadcasts in English and 52 other languages to some 100 million people around the world.

Ungar became the tenth President of Goucher College on July 1, 2001. In 2006, Ungar instituted a mandatory study abroad requirement for all students. He joined the faculty of Georgetown University Spring 2015. At Georgetown, he is the director of the Free Speech Project which is a grant recipient of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Ungar is a Lumina Foundation Fellow.

Honors and awards In 1972, Ungar won a George Polk Award for his book, The Papers & The Papers: An Account of the Legal and Political Battle over the Pentagon Papers. In May 1999 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters by Wilkes University in his hometown of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He has traveled widely in Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia; he is fluent in French and also speaks Spanish. He serves on the boards of the Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies and the Association of American Colleges and Universities, and is past chair of the Maryland Independent College and University Association. Mr. Ungar is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and he is an appointed member of the U.S. Public Interest Declassification Board. In June 2000, at its annual convention in Buenos Aires, the Rotary Foundation gave him its Scholar Alumni Achievement Award.

Personal life Ungar lives in Baltimore and Washington with his wife, Beth Ungar, a physician in the practice of internal medicine. They have a daughter, Lida, and a son, Philip.