Earl Lewis, Academic and Philanthropic Leader, To Receive Honorary Degree, Address Class of 2015, on May 18

Earl Lewis, president of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and a highly regarded historian and author and co-editor of seven books, as well as the 11-volume The Young Oxford History of African Americans, will address Rutgers University-Newark graduates on Monday, May 18, at 9 a.m., in the Prudential Center. Lewis also will be awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters.

Lewis, who holds master and doctoral degrees from the University of Minnesota, is a renowned historian and one of the nation’s leading scholars of African American studies. The son of a school teacher in the Jim Crow South, he overcame pervasive disadvantages of being educated in segregated elementary and middle schools. A member of the cohort that integrated his high school in Chesapeake, Va., he earned a National Merit Scholarship for Minority Students and attended Concordia (Minn.) College, from which he earned a bachelor’s degree in history and psychology.

Well known for his leadership in higher education at the national level, Lewis is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and serves on the boards of directors of the Educational Testing Service and the National Academies Board of Higher Education Assessment of Research-Doctorate Programs Committee. He has also served on the boards of the American Council of Learned Societies, the Center for Research Libraries and on many higher education task forces. He was a member of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity.

During his academic career, Lewis has held faculty appointments at the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Michigan and Emory University. At Michigan, he ultimately served as vice provost for academic affairs/graduate studies and dean of the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies. At Emory, he became provost and the executive vice president for academic affairs.

As president of The Mellon Foundation, Lewis oversees one of the world’s largest foundations, with more than $6 billion in assets. The foundation makes grants in five primary areas: higher education and scholarship in the humanities; scholarly communications; diversity; arts and cultural heritage; international and higher education and strategic projects.

The graduate School-Newark will hold a separate ceremony for graduates of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program, as well as a hooding ceremony for Ph.D. graduates, on May 16, 3 p.m., in the Paul Robeson Campus Center, Essex Room. Addressing the graduates will be Dr. Alexis Rodriguez, RU-N Biological Sciences Department.

The School of Law-Newark will hold a separate ceremony on May 22, at 10 am, in the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Newark.  Convocations speaker is a Rutgers College alumnus, the Honorable Barry T. Albin, a justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court.

Rutgers Business School-Newark and New Brunswick will hold a graduate school ceremony that same day, at 4 p.m. also in the NJPAC.  Rutgers College alumnus Arthur Certosimo will address the graduates. He recently retired from Bank of New York Mellon as senior executive vice president.

For more information, please visit www.newark.rutgers.edu/commencement.