Dr. Cindy Courville, MA '80, PhD '88 speaks at the 2011 Alumni Symposium. Dr. Cindy Lou Courville was the U.S. Ambassador to the African Union from 2006 to 2008. Previously she was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council where she helped craft United States policy towards Africa. Ambassador Courville graduated from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette with a B.A. and M.A. in political science and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Denver's Graduate School of International Studies (now the Josef Korbel School of International Studies), in comparative politics and international relations.