The Russell Sage Foundation is pleased to announce the appointment of historian Earl Lewis to its board of trustees. Lewis is currently Thomas C. Holt Distinguished University Professor of History, Afroamerican and African Studies, and Public Policy; Director and Founder, Center for Social Solutions, at the University of Michigan.
Lewis is an esteemed scholar in higher education, humanities scholarship and the role of race in American history and has authored several books on these subjects. He previously served as president of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (2013-2018), where he worked to foster diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education.
Lewis is also past president of the Organization of American Historians; a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the recipient of 11 honorary degrees. He has held faculty and administrative appointments at Michigan (1989–2004) and the University of California, Berkeley (1984–89). From 2004–2012, he served as Emory University’s provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of History and African American Studies. A member of numerous boards of directors or trustees, Lewis was an Obama administration appointee to the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity. He was awarded a National Humanities Medal by President Joe Biden in March 2023.
Lewis holds degrees from Concordia College-Moorhead, where he graduated with honors in history and psychology (1978), and the University of Minnesota (PhD, history, 1984), which honored him with the College of Liberal Arts Outstanding Alumni Award (2018).
He is an RSF research grant recipient and will join RSF’s board of trustees in November 2023.
Click here to read Earl Lewis’s University of Michigan profile.