Shirley Ann Redd Lewis (
née
A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...
Redd; born June 11, 1937) was an American educator, academic administrator, and college president. In 1994, she was the first female president of
Paine College
Paine College is a private, historically black Methodist college in Augusta, Georgia. It is affiliated with the United Methodist Church and Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. Paine College offers undergraduate degrees in the liberal arts, ...
, a
private
Private or privates may refer to:
Music
* " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation''
* Private (band), a Denmark-based band
* "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...
,
historically black
Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving the African-American community. ...
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...
college in
Augusta, Georgia
Augusta ( ), officially Augusta–Richmond County, is a consolidated city-county on the central eastern border of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. The city lies across the Savannah River from South Carolina at the head of its navig ...
.
Her research focus was in language acquisition in education.
She also held roles at
Vanderbilt Peabody College of Education and Human Development, and
Meharry Medical College
Meharry Medical College is a private historically black medical school affiliated with the United Methodist Church and located in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1876 as the Medical Department of Central Tennessee College, it was the first me ...
.
Early life and education
Shirley Ann Redd was born on June 11, 1937 in
Winding Gulf
Winding Gulf is a long tributary of the Guyandotte River in Raleigh County, West Virginia. Winding Gulf is part of the Mississippi River watershed via the Guyandotte and Ohio Rivers, and drains an area of in a rural area on the Allegheny Plate ...
, West Virginia.
Her parents were Thelma Danese Biggers Redd and Ronald F. Redd, her father worked as a school teacher.
When she was young her parents divorced, which caused her to move with her mother in order for her mother to find work; together they moved to
Beckley, West Virginia;
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...
, New York City;
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
, Massachusetts, and eventually settle down in
Berkeley
Berkeley most often refers to:
*Berkeley, California, a city in the United States
**University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California
* George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher
Berkeley may also refer ...
, California.
Her mother worked as a children's nurse.
She attended
Berkeley High School.
She graduated from
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
(1960 B.A. in Spanish and M.S.W. in social work); and
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
(PhD 1979 in education).
She also did graduate level teaching credential work at
San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...
and
California State University, Hayward
California State University, East Bay (Cal State East Bay, CSU East Bay, or CSUEB) is a public university in Hayward, California. The university is part of the 23-campus California State University system and offers 136 undergraduate and 60 post ...
(now California State University, East Bay).
Career
From 1962 until 1963, she worked as a Spanish teacher at the
Ravenswood City School District
The Ravenswood City School District is a public school district headquartered in East Palo Alto, California, US. The district, in the San Francisco Bay Area, serves the communities of East Palo Alto and eastern Menlo Park. Students from this sc ...
in East Palo Alto.
After her marriage, she and her husband traveled to Africa three times. The first visit was to Ghana in 1966; followed by Liberia, Senegal, Nigeria, and Ivory Coast; and again to Ghana in 1968.
In 1968, she and her husband received certificates in
Africa studies from a joint program hosted by the
University of Ghana
The University of Ghana is a public university located in Accra, Ghana. It the oldest and largest of the thirteen Ghanaian national public universities.
The university was founded in 1948 as the University College of the Gold Coast in the Br ...
and the
University of London
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...
.
In the 1970s, Lewis worked for welfare rights organizations and at community schools.
From 1972 to 1975, she taught English classes at
Nairobi College
Nairobi College was a small radical left junior college for ethnic minority students in East Palo Alto, California, active from 1969 until 1981. Nairobi College had satellite campuses throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. It was affiliated wi ...
, a private junior college in East Palo Alto, California.
She also taught linguistics at
Foothill College
Foothill College is a public community college in Los Altos Hills, California. It is part of the Foothill–De Anza Community College District. It was founded on January 15, 1957, and offers 79 Associate degree programs, 1 Bachelor's degree pr ...
, a public community college in Los Altos, California.
While attending graduate school she worked as a supervisor of the Stanford Teacher Education Program from 1972 until 1974.
This was followed by work at
Stanford University School of Education's program on cultural and linguistic pluralism, where she co-authored linguistic research papers.
Her doctorate degree was awarded in 1979 in education, with a focus on language acquisition for bilingual and
bidialectical students.
From 1979 to 1980, she moved to Nashville, to hold an adjunct professor role at the Vanderbilt Peabody College of Education and Human Development.
From 1981 to 1984, Lewis worked as an educational specialist at Meharry Medical College.
In 1984, she was appointed to associate dean of academic affairs at Meharry.
This was followed by executive director role at the United Methodist Church's Black College Fund from 1986 to 1991, and a promotion to assistant general secretary in 1992.
In 1994, Lewis was elected president of Paine College, replacing
Julius S. Scott Jr..
Within the 41 schools in the United Negro College Fund system, she was one of four women elected to president.
Lewis was also the first female president at Paine College, in its 112 years of existence.
She served as president of Paine College until 2007.
Files of Lewis’s work with the United Methodist Church Black College Fund are located in Nashville, Tennessee. Files from her presidency of Paine College are located at the campus.
Personal life
She married Ronald McGhee Lewis in 1963, and together they had one daughter.
In 2022, her husband Ronald Lewis died at age 87 in Montclair, New Jersey.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Shirley A. R.
1937 births
Living people
20th-century American women academics
African-American women academic administrators
Berkeley High School (Berkeley, California) alumni
California State University, East Bay alumni
Meharry Medical College people
People from Raleigh County, West Virginia
San Francisco State University alumni
Stanford Graduate School of Education alumni
University of California, Berkeley alumni
Vanderbilt University faculty
Heads of universities and colleges in the United States
Presidents of Paine College
Women heads of universities and colleges