New Leader for Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Elizabeth Alexander has been named the next president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She will start in the position in March, succeeding Earl Lewis, who has been president since 2013. The foundation awards $300 million in grants annually, many of them in higher education. Alexander, a poet, has taught at a number of universities and is currently the Wun Tsun Tam Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. She wrote the poem commissioned by President Obama for his first inauguration.