From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Ambassador Robert Hutchings is the dean of the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin. Previously he was Diplomat-in-Residence at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. Hutchings joined the Princeton faculty in 1997, and his research interests include international relations, diplomacy, and European affairs.  Hutchings is best known as the former chair of the National Intelligence Council, a position he held from 2003 to 2005, during a leave of absence from Princeton. On December 15, 2009, Hutchings was appointed Dean of the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin, a position he assumed effective March 22, 2010.