Greetings! I am Joseph Lewis and I am here to help you imagine the possibilities at Princeton. Throughout my career in higher education, I have worked on university-wide initiatives that expand access, promote diversity, and incubate inclusive excellence. 

I joined the Princeton University community as a postdoctoral lecturer in the Princeton Writing Program, where I taught “The Monuments Must Fall,” a writing seminar focused on histories of student activism in South Africa and the United States. Before Princeton, I held various professorial positions where I received the chance to sustain the important work of access, diversity, and inclusion. I was a teaching assistant professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In this role, I worked with campus partners to ensure first-generation college students' successful acclimation to the research institution. As a Consortium for Faculty Diversity Fellow in English and Black Studies at Denison University, I worked with faculty and campus partners to develop programs that promoted civic engagement. As a tenured associate professor of English at Delta College, a premier community college in University Center, Michigan, I chaired college-wide diversity initiatives in support of first-generation college students. I partnered with academic departments to revise articulation agreements with partnering schools to increase access for humanities and social science students. I served as a mentor to underrepresented students in the college-wide mentoring program and I partnered with community organizations such as the Saginaw United Way to develop opportunities for student pathways toward service learning. I also partnered with academic departments to create opportunities for students to gain international learning experiences in countries like the United Kingdom, France, Canada, and China.

My Ph.D. is in English from Wayne State University, where I was a King Chavez Parks Future Faculty Fellow. I have an M.A. in Africana Studies and Literature from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study and a B.A. in English Arts from Hampton University, where I was an inaugural fellow in the William Harvey Leadership Institute. I also received a specialized certificate from Cornell University’s School of Criticism and Theory. My research focuses on literary and rhetorical theory with an emphasis on modern culture(s) and a more specific interest in the history, place, and space of Western higher education institutions. 

I am here to help you navigate your journey through graduate school. I do this work because it allows me the opportunity to rigorously reimagine what it means to create a safe learning environment–one in which everyone’s humanity is recognized. As a first-generation graduate student, it is my passion to make sure you feel a sense of belonging because you belong at Princeton! 

Areas of Responsibility:

• Oversight recruitment and programming initiatives
• Provide faculty support on holistic admissions
• Assists with issues related to advising, academic achievement, and degree completion
• Oversight of external and internal pipeline/pathway initiatives
• Supervision of Access, Diversity and Inclusion staff