Michael L. Lomax, president of Dillard University in New Orleans, will lecture on "Leadership in the 21st Century," on Tuesday, Feb. 4, at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Lomax will speak at 4 p.m. in Old Main Chapel. His talk is free and open to the public.
Dillard University is a private, historically black, liberal arts undergraduate institution that entered into an educational technology partnership with CU-Boulder in conjunction with CU's ATLAS initiative last spring. Some of its notable alumni include former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young Jr., Brown University President Ruth Simmons and jazz great Ellis Marsalis.
Since Lomax became president of Dillard in 1997, enrollment has grown by nearly 40 percent to 2,100 students. Prior to becoming president, Lomax had a distinguished career teaching literature at Morehouse and Spelman colleges, Emory University, the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Georgia. He also served for 12 years as chairman of the Board of Commissioners of Fulton County, the county containing Atlanta.
Lomax is the founding chairman of Atlanta's National Black Arts Festival and serves on the boards of the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Carter Center of Emory University, the United Way of America and Teach for America. President George W. Bush appointed Lomax to the President's Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and he also serves on the National Museum of African American History and Culture Plan for Action Presidential Commission.
CU-Boulder's ATLAS initiative -- the Alliance for Technology, Learning and Society -- seeks to prepare students of all disciplines for lives and leadership careers in the networked information age. The partnership between ATLAS and Dillard received a $550,000 grant from the Carnegie Foundation of New York to establish a 15-month demonstration project on "Liberal Arts Curriculum in a Technological Age."
According to CU-Boulder Chancellor Richard L. Byyny, the ATLAS-Dillard relationship has not only strengthened technology programs for students at both institutions, but could very possibly serve as a pilot program for higher education across the country.
The joint project has created new liberal arts course materials in calculus and humanities that are shared and delivered by faculty on both campuses. Web-based technologies and videoconferencing are used in the course modules to improve student learning.
The project also will lay the groundwork for the creation of a faculty training program at Dillard in educational technology and will strive to increase the number of Dillard graduates attending graduate school, including at CU-Boulder. Faculty and student exchange programs already have begun and may be expanded.
For information on Dillard University see . For more information on the ATLAS initiative at CU-Boulder see . The CU-Dillard project is described at .