Creative industries in Washtenaw County add hundreds of millions of dollars to the local economy. In the weeks and months to come, host Deb Polich, the President and CEO of Creative Washtenaw, explores the myriad of contributors that make up the creative sector in Washtenaw County.
ABOUT DR. EARL LEWIS:
Earl Lewis is the Thomas C. Holt Distinguished University Professor of history, Afro-American and African Studies, and Public Policy and director of the Center for Social Solutions at the University of Michigan.
From March 2013-2018, he served as President of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
A noted author and esteemed social historian, he is past President of the Organization of American Historians.
A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2008) and the American Academy of Political & Social Sciences (2022), he is the recipient of twelve honorary degrees, and the National Humanities Medal (2023).
Lewis has held faculty and administrative appointments at Michigan (1989-2004) and the University of California, Berkeley (1984-89).
From 2004-2012, he served as Emory University’s Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of History and African American Studies.
In addition to prior service on a number of nonprofit and governmental boards, Lewis chaired the board of Regents at Concordia College-Moorhead, is a trustee and chair of the board of ETS, secretary of the board of trustees of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a director of 2U and the Capital Group, American Funds.
RESOURCES:
University of Michigan Center for Social Solutions
U-M Center for Social Solutions on Facebook
U-M Center for Social Solutions on X (Twitter)
U-M Center for Social Solutions on LinkedIn
U-M Center for Social Solutions on YouTube
TRANSCRIPTION:
Deb Polich: This is creative:impact, 89 one WEMU's exclusive segment that showcases the artists, creative people, businesses and organizations that make Washtenaw County a great place to create, live, work, learn, play and visit. I'm Deb Polich, president and CEO of Creative Washtenaw and your host. Yes, Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County, we should be boastful and celebrate the handful of extraordinary individuals and organizations that have been awarded our nation's highest award for work in the arts, humanities and museums. George Shirley, Bill Bolcom, UMS, and Artrain are on that list, and you're going to be introduced to another one today. I'm excited to welcome Dr. Earl Lewis, who received the 2023 National Medal for Humanities from President Biden at a White House ceremony this summer. He's here to tell us about his experience and the work he's engaged with that led to such an honor. Dr. Lewis, Earl, welcome to creative:impact.
Dr. Earl Lewis: Thank you. My pleasure.
Deb Polich: So, I believe you are the first University of Michigan faculty member to receive the Humanities Medal. Truly congratulations and such wonderful recognition of your work.
Dr. Earl Lewis: Thank you. It was an incredible honor and a great surprise. Every now and then, you think you receive a call saying someone wants to talk to you about something, you thought, "Well, let me see. Is this another assignment? Another possible job for me?" And it turns out no. Actually, it was actually something even better. It was an honor.
Deb Polich: Oh, sure, sure, sure. And it recognizes the scholarship that you do in higher education, in humanities, and also the role of race in American history. And so ,that's very important. But you came to Ann Arbor the first time in, I think, 1989, as the dean of U of M's Rackham School of Graduate Studies. And you held that position for seven years before moving on to serve as provost at Emory University. Then speaking of those calls, well, the Andrew Mellon Foundation called, and you served there as president from 2013 to 2018, and, through that time, advanced and put a lens on diversity, equity and inclusion. So, that's all remarkable. But I have to ask. What brought you back to Ann Arbor?
Dr. Earl Lewis: So, I actually came to Ann Arbor, as you noted, in '89, but actually just as an associate professor. And it wasn't until '98 that I became dean of Rackham. And those 15 years were remarkable years. So, I was involved in a range of activities on the scholarly side, as you noted, and had a number of graduate students. And when I left and went away for 14 years, I realized when I was stepping down as president of the Mellon Foundation, I had ten years left where I wanted to be on payroll. And so, I was at a stage in my career where I could go around and talk to my friends who were presidents. And so, I interviewed them to see which institution made the most sense for me to return to for those last ten years on payroll. And I came back to Michigan, had a conversation with the president, and concluded this was the place. There was still work to be done in Ann Arbor, work to be done with colleagues and friends who were still residing here and with former students who were now actually senior faculty members. And so, I came back in. And it's been a great decision.
Deb Polich: And we're glad you're here. Before we get into your current work and even your award, I just wanted to ask you a question. So, I've successfully earned many National Endowment for the Arts grants, and I remember submitting a National Endowment for the Humanities grants once. And I said, "You know, I speak art pretty fluently, but not humanities so much." Can you give us a simple definition between the two. Arts and humanities are connected, but they're not the same.
Dr. Earl Lewis: Yeah. So, the arts and humanities are indeed connected. And part of that has to do with the creative side in which you fully understand. Humanists tend to be folks who study a particular subject matter, be it history, philosophy, literature, etc., and they write about the activities and the events and the people that they study. Artists, on the other side, oftentimes are producers, and they are actually creating new forms of art, albeit visual or musical or theatrical arts. And so, in a fine way, it's the distinction between the study of and the production of. That's perhaps an oversimplification, but it's an easier way to actually draw the line between the arts and humanities.
Deb Polich: It works for me. So, I'm tempted to ask you about what it was like going to the White House and doing all those things, but I want to change that question up. If you can think back to Earl Lewis as a young boy, maybe eight years old or so, if you could tell him about his future and how it would turn out, what would you want him to know?
Dr. Earl Lewis: To always take a chance on yourself and do so in partnership with others. In fact, I said to some friends of mine that my mom, who passed away in 2006, would have been both delighted and surprised, but delighted because she always believed that I had the ability to walk through doors that others had not walked through.
Deb Polich: We all need a mom like that!
Dr. Earl Lewis: Exactly! And surprised in the sense that what she imagined for me. I grew up in the segregated South. I was born in 1955 in Virginia and went to segregated schools until I was in the 10th grade. And so, recognizing that those doors that I would later walk through were not even part of the mental landscape for most kids on my block in my neighborhood. And yet, here I am. I have walked through the doors of the White House and a few other doors over the course of the last 50 years. That's when I would say to my eight-year-old self: "Hey, be prepared to walk through doors!"
Deb Polich: That's amazing! I mean, that's such a great thing to say: be prepared to walk through doors. 89 one WEMU's creative:impact continues with Dr. Earl Lewis, recipient of the 2023 National Medal for Humanities and the director of the Center for Social Solutions at the University of Michigan. So, Earl, that program, the Center for the Social Solutions, it actually has solutions in its name, which I love, but it's also focused on four program areas: diversity and democracy, slavery and its aftermath, water, equity and security, and the future of work. Yeah, you're not taking on too much there, are you?
Dr. Earl Lewis: Not at all.
Deb Polich: I'm glad to know you're enthusiastic about that. You know, is it your experience that scholars are as often looking for solutions as much as they are looking at research?
Dr. Earl Lewis: So, I spent, as you well know, more than 20 years as an administrator, either a dean, a provost or a foundation president, and I realized we would spend a lot of time studying things. But, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, we aren't often involved in trying to come up with solutions. And so, when I considered coming back to the university, particularly the University of Michigan, I asked, "What do I want to do with these last ten years?" Let's talk about solving some things--those big, gnarly, bodacious problems that tend to confound us all. And I came up with these four sort of zones of activity, recognizing that in some ways they overlap, even though from a bird's eye view, they may look a little different to the casual viewer. But if you think about what it means to be in a diverse democracy, how do we deal with our past and how do we deal with the legacy of slavery and how do we think about that in terms of the environment and how do we talk about, in this case, water equity and security and then if you think about what has begun to upturn the world, there's nothing more powerful than automation. And we've actually really come back to the core question of the dignity of labor in an automated world. Those four questions have animated a lot of my work over the last 30 years, and I keep thinking, "What can I do when I actually come up with a concept for a center for solving some of these big, gnarly, bodacious problems?"
Deb Polich: So, bringing it back to the focus of creative:impact, have you found that arts and creativity is involved as part of those solutions?
Dr. Earl Lewis: Absolutely. I mean, there's no way to actually talk about solving questions of racial inequality in America without talking about the arts. I often said, when I was president of the Mellon Foundation, if you think of two political figures in recent memory who were quite dissimilar---Former Vice President Dick Cheney and former President Barack Obama---they were quite different individuals. Yet, they both went to see the play Hamilton. And they actually left seeing the same play. I mean, it's one of the ways in which actually the arts can level the setting, so that individuals can begin to comprehend and conceive of a world where they actually think they're talking about the same thing, even if they enter into that space from different vantage points.
Deb Polich: The universal language of the arts. So, we have just a minute left, but any particular solutions that you've been able to apply to date?
Dr. Earl Lewis: So, we have been spending the last three years working with a team of scholars across the country at eight other universities, including our own, to look at the question of local histories, race and reparations. And so, we actually are coming up with a set of solutions at the local level to think about how do we confront our past and deal with the question of repair. What does that repair look like? And it will be, in some ways, aired nationally because we're going to air a documentary on public broadcasting in January, and then we'll talk about the cost of inheritance.
Deb Polich: It's inspiring to hear what you're working on. Thank you so much for being on the show today, and we look forward to learning about more solutions.
Dr. Earl Lewis: Thank you so much. It's been great.
Deb Polich: That's Dr. Earl Lewis, recipient of the 2023 National Medal for Humanities, and he is the director for the Center for Social Solutions at U of M. Find out more about Dr. Lewis and his work at WEMU dot org. You've been listening to creative:impact. I'm Deb Polich, president and CEO of Creative Washtenaw and your host. Mat Hopson is our producer. Please join us every Tuesday to meet the people who make Washtenaw creative. This is 89 one WEMU Ypsilanti. Public radio from Eastern Michigan University.
Non-commercial, fact based reporting is made possible by your financial support. Make your donation to WEMU today to keep your community NPR station thriving.
Like 89.1 WEMU on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
Contact WEMU News at 734.487.3363 or email us at studio@wemu.org
