Dr. Michael L. Lomax
Michael Lucius Lomax, Ph.D., serves as president and CEO of the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), 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, Lomax entered Morehouse College at 16 and in 1968 was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in English as one of the College’s inaugural Phi Beta Kappa graduates. 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, Lomax joined Morehouse as an English instructor. Over the next 20 years, he served on the faculties of both Morehouse and Spelman Colleges.
Lomax also began his civic career in Atlanta, working as the director of research and special assistant to Maynard Holbrook Jackson ’56, the city’s first African American mayor. During the Jackson Administration, he also helped establish Atlanta’s Office of Cultural Affairs.
In 1978, Lomax was elected to the Fulton County Board of Commissioners and became the first African American to be elected board chairman, responsible for a $500 million annual operating budget and 5,000 county employees. He founded the Fulton County Arts Council and the National Black Arts Festival, and oversaw the building of Georgia’s Interstate 400, the expansion and renovation of historic Grady Hospital, and construction of the Fulton County Government Center. In 1988, Lomax co-chaired the Democratic National Convention and was instrumental in bringing the 1996 Olympic Games to Atlanta.
Then, in 1994, he 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, Lomax served as the fifth president of Dillard University. During his tenure, he led a successful $60 million campaign and saw student enrollment increase by nearly 50 percent, accompanied by dramatic increases in private funding and alumni giving.
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 200,000 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). Lomax also oversees the organization’s 400-plus scholarship programs, which award more than 10,000 scholarships a year.
In addition, he 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 Handshake, the KIPP Foundation, Cengage Group and Teach for America. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Senate, a trustee of the Studio Museum in Harlem, a founding member of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, and a past board member for America’s Promise Alliance.
A former Emory University trustee, Lomax, received the university’s most prestigious alumni honor, the Emory Medal, in 2004. His other awards include the Omicron Delta Kappa Laurel Crowned Circle Award, 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.
Lomax resides in Atlanta, and is the father of three daughters, Deignan, Michele and Rachel, as well as the grandfather of Chloe, Averie, Bailey, Ethan and Michael, who is a rising senior at Morehouse College.