AVP for University Affairs

Andre Lewis was appointed in the summer of 2013 by President Eduardo M. Ochoa as Associate Vice President for University Affairs. In that capacity Mr. Lewis is responsible for all external university communications and inter-governmental relations at the local, state, and federal level for California State University, Monterey Bay.

Prior to joining the CSU system, Mr. Lewis was appointed by President Barack Obama to the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary for International and Foreign Language Education in the Office of Post-Secondary Education at the Department of Education. In that role, he oversaw implementation of President Obama's and Secretary Duncan's priorities for international and foreign language education at the K-12 and post-secondary level. Mr. Lewis oversaw 18 international education programs including the Fulbright-Hays programs, American Overseas Research Centers, and funding of the Language/National Resource Centers at many of our country's colleges and universities.

Andre Lewis is the first in his family to have attended Pierce Community College and then transfer to the University of California, Berkeley where he graduated with a degree in history, emphasizing Soviet studies. He then attended law school at the Boston University School of Law, where he was an editor on the International Law Review.

Upon graduation, he joined the administration of William Jefferson Clinton, where he worked at the U.S. Department of State on the Kyoto Protocol on Global Warming, the International Coral Reef Initiative, the Montreal Protocol on Ozone Depletion, and other biodiversity and global environmental issues. After working on the 1996 Clinton re-election campaign, Mr. Lewis returned to the Department of State, where he was special advisor on economic and security policies related to the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union.

In 1999, Mr. Lewis left the administration to work in the office of California Congresswoman Juanita Millender McDonald as her chief of staff for two years. It was then that the Governor Gray Davis re-election campaign asked him to join as the Southern California Political Director. After the election, Mr. Lewis was appointed Deputy Cabinet Secretary to Governor Gray Davis. Following his time in the Davis administration, Mr. Lewis worked for a short period in the non-profit housing sector. He returned to public service in 2006, when he was appointed as Director of International Trade and Development for the City of Los Angeles in the office of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.