Lester C. Newman

Newman loved campus life and enjoyed interacting with students. With the help of fellowships and faculty development grants he earned his Master of Arts in 1976 and his Ph.D. in political science in 1987 from Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia. His Ph.D. dissertation was entitled "The Political Orientation of Black Students from All-Black Towns: The Cases of Boley, Oklahoma; Grambling, Louisiana; and Mound Bayou, Mississippi."

Newman's first academic position, in 1976, was as assistant professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Two years later he returned to Southern University as an assistant professor of political science. There, in addition to his research and teaching, Newman began to take on various administrative functions. As seminar director of "The Family as an Agent of Socialization," funded by the Louisiana Board of Regents, Newman conducted workshops throughout South Louisiana in 1980. During that summer he served as assistant director of the Robert A. Taft Seminar for Teachers, funded by the Robert A. Taft Institute for Government at the university. That same year Newman served as assistant director of the Youth Leadership Program at Southern. Between 1980 and 1981, he was coordinator and consultant for the political science component of Southern's Rural Intern Program.

In 1986 Newman became assistant to the dean of the Junior Division at Southern University. The following year he was named associate director of Institutional Self-Study, the university's first accreditation review program.