Dr. Michael L. Lomax
Dr. Michael Lucius Lomax has served as president and CEO of the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) for more than two decades. UNCF is the nation’s largest and most effective minority education organization and the largest private provider of scholarships and other educational support to underrepresented students.
A native of Los Angeles, California, Lomax entered Morehouse College at the age of 16 and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English as one of the college’s inaugural Phi Beta Kappa graduates in 1968. He earned a Master of Arts degree in English Literature from Columbia University in 1972 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in American and African American Literature from Emory University in 1984.
In 1969, Dr. Lomax joined the faculty of Morehouse College as an instructor of English. Over the next twenty years, Dr. Lomax subsequently served on the faculties of both Morehouse and Spelman Colleges as a tenured professor.
Lomax began his civic career in Atlanta, Georgia under the city’s first African American mayor, Maynard Holbrook Jackson, where he served as the Director of Research & Special Assistant to the Mayor. During the Jackson Administration, he also helped establish the City of Atlanta’s Office of Cultural Affairs, where he served as its first director.
In 1978, Dr. Lomax was elected to the Fulton County Board of Commissioners and became the first African American to be elected as board chairman, a position he held from 1981 to 1993. In this role, he was responsible for a $500 million annual operating budget and 5,000 county employees. He also founded the Bureau of Cultural Affairs, the Fulton County Arts Council, and the National Black Arts Festival.
To meet the needs of a vibrantly changing community, he oversaw the building of Georgia’s Interstate 400, a major highway on the outskirts of Atlanta; expanding and renovating the historic Grady Hospital; and building the new Fulton County Government Center. In 1988, he co-chaired the Democratic National Convention and was instrumental in bringing the 1996 Olympic Games to Atlanta.
In 1994, Dr. Lomax began his tenure as president of the National Faculty, an Atlanta-based organization dedicated to bringing together arts and sciences higher education scholars with K-12 teachers.
From 1997 to 2004, Dr. Lomax served as the fifth president of Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana. During his tenure at Dillard, the student enrollment increased by nearly 50 percent, accompanied by dramatic increases in private funding and alumni giving. Dr. Lomax also led a $60 million campaign that improved the educational and everyday environments for students and faculty.
Since 2004, Lomax has served as president and chief executive officer of UNCF. Under his leadership, UNCF has raised more than $4 billion and helped more than 300,000 students earn college degrees and launch careers. Annually, UNCF’s work enables 50,000 students to go to college with UNCF scholarships and attend its 37 member historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). At UNCF’s helm, Lomax oversees the organization’s 400-plus scholarship programs, which award more than 10,000 scholarships a year. He also launched UNCF’s Institute for Capacity Building, which supports member HBCUs to become stronger, more effective and self-sustaining.
Under Lomax’s leadership, UNCF has engineered partnerships with reform-focused leaders and organizations and worked to further advance HBCUs with Congress, the administration, and the Department of Education.
Among his many honors, Lomax was appointed to the President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities by President George W. Bush. He serves on the boards of the Special Olympics, KIPP, Cengage and Studio Museum in Harlem. And he formerly served on the board of Teach for America and was the founding director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.
A former Emory University trustee, Lomax, in 2004, received the university’s most prestigious alumni honor, the Emory Medal, which honors recipients who are leaders in their field as well as leaders in their local, national, and global communities. Among Lomax’s other awards are the Laurel Crowned Circle Award from Omicron Delta Kappa, Morehouse’s Bennie Achievement Award, and 17 honorary degrees.
He is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. and Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity, Inc.
Dr. Lomax resides in Atlanta, Georgia and is the father of three daughters, Deignan, Michele and Rachel and the grandfather of Chloe, a rising senior at Howard University, who will graduate in the Class of 2026, Averie, Bailey, Ethan and Michael, who is a Morehouse College alum.