Oakland, CA - Mills College is pleased to announce the appointment of Joi Lewis as the new dean of student life. A social entrepreneur, practitioner-scholar, global leader, and activist, she brings to Mills significant experience related to issues of race, social justice, and student development in higher education. 

Effective August 13, 2007, Lewis will be responsible for leading the Mills Division of Student Life, serving as a primary advocate for approximately 1,400 undergraduate and graduate students. She will lead the campus-wide effort to strengthen community within the diverse campus population, and ensure that all students are connected with the people, programs, and services enhancing the total student experience at Mills.

“I am very excited to join the extraordinary Mills community known for its longstanding commitment to women’s education, the liberal arts, and social justice,” said Lewis.  “I love that I will have the opportunity to work in a socially active environment where students learn to use their brilliance in the service of humanity.”

With more than 15 years of experience in student and academic affairs administration in public and private higher education, she comes to Mills having recently completed her EdD in higher education management at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2006-07 she was also an Archibald Bush Leadership Fellow and a visiting scholar at the Spencer Foundation in Chicago, Illinois.  

Lewis spent seven years at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she became the first dean of multicultural life in 2002, serving in that role until May 2006. In that position, she led faculty, staff, and students to successfully build what is now the Department of Multicultural Life. Under Lewis’ leadership, the percentage of students of color increased from 11% to 17%, and the retention rate rose from 65% to 97%, the highest to date in the college’s history.
 
Before becoming dean of multicultural life, she also served as Macalester’s associate dean of students, and as a student affairs administrator at the University of Minnesota and Iowa State University. She has experience in working with a wide range of students and their families and in creating community around the ways in which race and ethnicity intersect with identities based on gender, social class, religion, national origin, sexuality, and physical ability.

Lewis’ work focuses on transforming organizational structures and incorporating the values and ethos of historically underrepresented peoples, discourses, and ideas into the fabric of educational institutions and local and global communities. 

Her doctoral research focused on assessing and developing models and strategies for shifting organizational culture in higher education. She also examined issues of access, retention, and completion for women and people of color. Her main interest is in comparing educational systems in the United States and South Africa, in an effort to increase higher education’s accountability. 

Lewis earned her BS in business administration from Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville and her MS in higher education management from Iowa State University. Her sense of community, as well as her vocational and research interests were shaped by three critical life experiences: growing up in East St. Louis, Illinois, an administrative sabbatical in Cape Town, South Africa, and living in the Selby-Dale neighborhood of St. Paul, Minnesota.

Mills College is a nationally renowned, independent liberal arts college offering innovative degree programs for undergraduate women, and graduate degree and certificate programs for women and men. Consistently recognized as one of the top 100 liberal arts colleges in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, Mills currently ranks among the top 20 most diverse liberal arts colleges. The New York Times recently selected Mills as one of three leading California colleges for students to consider.

In 2006, the Washington Monthly College Rankings named Mills a leading liberal arts college based on community service, research spending, quality of preparation for graduate education, and social mobility. In addition, The Princeton Review’s annual guide, the Best 361 Colleges (2007) included Mills for the second year in a row among top U.S. institutions offering students an outstanding undergraduate education.
 
Nestled in the foothills of Oakland, California, on 135 lush acres, Mills provides a dynamic liberal arts education fostering women’s leadership, social responsibility, and creativity.

PRESS CONTACT:
Deborah Dallinger
Communications Consultant
925.788.9131