Announcements

Philip E. Lewis appointed Vice President for the Liberal Arts Colleges Program

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has appointed Philip E. Lewis to the position of Vice President for the Liberal Arts Colleges Program, effective February 1, 2007. For more than 30 years, Mr. Lewis has been a faculty member of the Department of Romance Studies and has served in many leadership positions at Cornell University, including as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Mr. Lewis will succeed Mary Patterson McPherson, who served as Vice President since October 1997 and is scheduled to retire.

The Foundation’s president, Don M. Randel, describes Mr. Lewis as “. . . a deeply committed teacher of undergraduates as well as a distinguished scholar in the humanities and a continuing participant in public discussions of the academy generally. In short, he represents personally and powerfully the values and pursuits that are central to the mission of the Foundation, and he will be especially good at helping us think about how we might knit together the various strands of our support of higher education generally.”

Mr. Lewis responded to his appointment by pointing to “the Mellon Foundation’s invaluable role in promoting the humanities and the arts and in supporting diversity and academic innovation in higher education. The opportunity to work under Don Randel’s leadership and to build on Pat McPherson’s splendid achievements is one that I have accepted with humility, but also with great enthusiasm.”

A native of East Tennessee, Mr. Lewis is an alumnus of Davidson College and received a PhD in French Literature from Yale University.

Mr. Lewis has published extensively, including two books La Rochefoucauld: The Art of Abstraction and Seeing through the Mother Goose Tales: Visual Turns in the Writings of Charles Perrault. He has also published articles on a wide range of subjects, most recently “The Publishing Crisis and Tenure Criteria: an Issue for Research Universities?”

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is a private philanthropic institution, with assets of approximately $5 billion, that makes grants on a selective basis to institutions of higher education, independent libraries, centers for advanced study, museums, art conservation, and performing arts organizations.

The Foundation’s Liberal Arts Colleges Program provides multiyear grants to liberal arts colleges across the country. Approximately 67 liberal arts colleges receive direct support through this program, and more than 125 institutions receive indirect support through consortia and associations. Grants awarded in this program have aimed to provide additional research and professional opportunities for faculty members, strengthen liberal arts colleges, and assist colleges as they refresh their curricular offerings. In addition, Foundation staff work with liberal arts college presidents to devise grant support that addresses institutional and/or strategic planning goals.

Contact:

Michele S. Warman
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
212-838-8400