Lincoln Lewis, an educator whose main focus was on increasing diversity in higher education, died late last month in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was 85 years old and had been suffering from cancer.
Dr. Lewis was a native of Anguilla in the West Indies. As a young man he worked for the Lago Oil and Transport Company in Aruba and won the company’s scholarship that enabled him to come to the United States to study at Cornell University. He earned a bachelor’s degree and MBA at Cornell.
Lewis served as manager of special programs at Yale University in the early 197os. There he developed the university’s first affirmative action plan. In 1976, Lewis was named director of affirmative action at Indiana University/Purdue in Indianapolis. He earned a doctorate in education from Indiana University in 1980.
In 1988, Dr. Lewis joined the faculty at the University of Virginia as a professor of education. He also served as adviser to the president for equal opportunity and affirmative action. He retired in 1995 but remained active in the university and surrounding community.
