Dr. Timothy E. Lewis (he/him/his) is a documentary filmmaker, author, nationally-recognized race scholar, and educator.
Dr. Lewis completed his undergraduate education at the historic Tuskegee University with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a second Bachelor of Arts in History. At Tuskegee University, he was mentored by Dr. Megan Fields, Dr. Joe Jimmeh, Dr. Henry James Findlay, and civil rights legend, Attorney Fred Gray. He then went on to earn a Master of Science degree in International Relations from Troy University, and in 2017 he received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
In 2017, Dr. Lewis joined the tenure-track faculty in the Department of Political Science at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE), specializing in identity politics. Faced with racism, his research was often critiqued for not representing traditional Political Science research. However, Dr. Lewis, by experience, legacy, and mentorship, understood the pervasive ways that racism attempts to halt Black achievement; and he was not dissuaded. He was a prominent campus figure with a growing national voice in addressing institutional and systemic racism. In 2020 & 2021, at the intersection of the global unrest to systemic racism noted by the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd and the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Lewis’s work on equity and social justice within higher education was undeniable, prompting the Missouri House of Representatives to honor him with a Missouri State resolution for his “service in higher education”—Resolution No. 254, Adopted February 17, 2021.
In 2023, Dr. Lewis made history, becoming the first Black American to earn tenure in the Department of Political Science at SIUE, since its inception on 1965. His impact to higher education and society continually grew and caught the admiration of the American Political Science Association, an organization of 11,000+ international members, which honored him as one of four members profiled in Political Science Now. Before leaving SIUE, Dr. Lewis served as Chair of the Department of Social Work and the Director of Black Studies, concurrently.
Dr. Lewis currently serves as the Dean of the College of Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities (CoSSAH) at Harris-Stowe State University in St. Louis, MO—the nation’s 5th oldest historically Black institution of higher learning.