Syracuse University has a distinguished history of opening its doors to talented students from around the world.  As part of the Invest Syracuse: Advancing Academic Excellence and the Student Experience initiative, we are launching the Access Syracuse Initiative, a dedicated fundraising effort focused exclusively on increasing financial support and affordability to an exceptional education.  Generous donors like Owen Lewis ’66 G’73 are creating new opportunities to provide promising students the chance at a life-changing education.

Lewis was looking for a way to encourage African Americans to study physics, so he took action, and generously endowed a scholarship.  “When I was in school, the majority of physicists were white males; today, while women have nearly caught up, the majority is still white,” Lewis said. “Science needs a diversity of ideas and a diversity of outlooks.”

Syracuse University opened doors for Lewis, and he wants to pay it forward.

“I loved both the academic and social diversity. I took a course on jazz.  I took a course in business. I tried a couple languages,” Lewis said. “You could go across the Quad and see 100 people you knew and 1,000 people you did not know.”

Providing access to an excellent education for students of talent and promise from across the socioeconomic spectrum remains a fundamental value of Syracuse University. We are committed to meeting the needs of students, our communities, our nation and the world. Thanks to the philanthropy of alumni like Lewis, and through programs like Invest Syracuse: Advancing Academic Excellence and the Student Experience, we will continue to be leaders in advancing diversity, inclusion, interdisciplinarity and global study, research and scholarship. Learn how Invest Syracuse expands opportunity, excellence and success.