Former General Milley to Join Faculty at Georgetown and Princeton

Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley is joining the faculties at Georgetown and Princeton to lecture and teach about national security, the universities announced Tuesday.

Milley, 65, is an alumnus of Princeton, where he played hockey and earned a bachelor’s degree in politics in 1980. Milley begins this month and his appointment at the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) runs through June 2025.

“We are thrilled to welcome Mark back to Princeton, and to SPIA specifically,” Amaney Jamal, the school’s dean, said. “His many years of outstanding, dedicated service to his country will be of enormous value to our students, and his experience in the national’s capital as well as abroad in conflict zones will benefit the school as a whole.”

At Georgetown, Milley also begins this semester in residence with the Security Studies Program in the School of Foreign Service. Georgetown said Milley will “mentor and engage with students, work closely with program faculty, and offer his insights in events with members of the broader Georgetown community.”

Milley retired in September, handing over the reins as Joint Chiefs chairman to Air Force Gen. Charles Brown.

Milley was nominated by President Donald Trump in 2019 but the road was a rocky one.

In 2020, Milley publicly apologized for joining Trump as he walked from the White House to a church in Lafayette Square for a photo opportunity after authorities cleared the way of protesters using tear gas and rubber bullets.

“As a commissioned officer, I have a duty to ensure that the military stays out of politics,” Milley would later tell the Atlantic. “The political people, the president and others can do whatever they want. But I can’t. I’m a soldier, and fundamental to this republic is for the military to stay out of politics.”

Trump’s parting shot to a retiring Milley was that he was “slow moving and thinking.”

That came days after Trump lashed out at Milley in a Truth Social post, calling his previous conversations with China “an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH! A war between China and the United States could have been the result of this treasonous act.”