Earl Lewis, dean of the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies and vice provost for academic affairs/graduate studies at the University of Michigan, will become Emory’s executive vice president for academic affairs and provost on July 1.

Lewis (left) will be Emory’s first African American provost and the highest ranking African American administrator in University history.

Lewis, who is also the Elsa Barkley Brown and Robin D. G. Kelley Collegiate Professor of History and African American and African Studies, has served as dean of the Rackham School since 1997 and became vice provost in 1998. He joined the Michigan faculty in 1989 and the next year became director of the school’s Center for Afroamerican and African Studies. Before coming to Ann Arbor, he spent four years as assistant professor of Afroamerican studies at the University of California at Berkeley.

Lewis earned his bachelor’s degree in history and psychology magna cum laude from Concordia College in Minneapolis and his master’s and Ph.D. degrees in history from the University of Minnesota.

President James W. Wagner, who chose Lewis from a pool of four finalists, says his experience in academic administration, his roots in the humanities, and his particular experience in graduate education all made him a strong candidate.

“He brings a rich portfolio of capabilities that will be a strong complement to those already part of Emory’s leadership team,” Wagner said.

Chair of the Board of Trustees Ben Johnson said the board was “uniformly impressed” with Lewis’s “energy and enthusiasm about being part of the team at Emory” when he visited the campus in February.

Lewis is Emory’s first permanent provost since Rebecca Chopp, now president of Colgate University, left in 2001.

William H. Fox ’79PhD, senior vice president for institutional advancement, has announced he will step “aside” and into a new role to make way for fresh leadership in University fundraising and advancement.

After more than a dozen years at the helm of the division, during which Emory has raised more than $2 billion, Fox (left) says it’s an appropriate time to make a change–particularly since the University is expected to launch a major comprehensive campaign soon, a process that could take up to a decade. His new title is senior vice president for external affairs, a job Fox says he considers to be analogous with “University ambassador-at-large.”

Fox’s tenure as an Emory administrator dates back to 1975, when he served as assistant director of the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts. In 1978 he became director of the undergraduate humanities program. He went on to become dean and then vice president and dean of Campus Life, where he worked from 1979 until his move to Institutional Advancement in 1991. He holds a Ph.D. from Emory in literature and theology and has taught classes in the College nearly every year.

“I celebrate with you that Bill has agreed to serve Emory in a new capacity,” said President James W. Wagner. “In doing so, he will continue to maintain and build strong relationships with individuals and organizations to whom Emory owes a great deal and through whom Emory hopes to draw strength in moving toward its vision.”

Fox says he will remain in his current position “until a successor is literally ready to move into this office.” Then he will relocate one floor up–to an office on the third floor of the Administration building.

“I have no intention of working any less than I do now, but my new responsibilities will carry less stress,” Fox says. “This new job plays to my greatest passions: relationships with other people. I have considered my career a great journey with this institution, and I’m not ready for it to be over. I would like to continue working at Emory as long as I can still walk and think.”–P.P.P.

Eleanore Raoul Professor of the Humanities Elizabeth Fox-Genovese was awarded a 2003 National Humanities Medal by President George W. Bush in November.

The medals were given to ten distinguished Americans for their contributions to the humanities. First awarded in 1989 as the Charles Frankel Prize, these medals honor those whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the humanities, broadened citizens’ engagement with the humanities, or helped preserve and expand America’s access to important resources in the humanities, according to the White House.

Educated at Bryn Mawr College and Harvard, Fox-Genovese was the founding director of Emory’s Institute for Women’s Studies. She is widely published on history and literature, public policy, education, religion, culture, and contemporary women’s issues, and is editor of the Journal of the Historical Society. Among her grants and awards are the Cardinal Wright Award from the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, the Doctor of Letters from Millsaps College, the C. Hugh Holman Prize from the Society for the Study of Southern Literature, and the ACLS and Ford Foundation Fellowship. Fox-Genovese and her husband, Eugene Genovese, have written books on slavery and the old South, and she also is the author of Women and the Future of the Family (2000).–P.P.P.