"Save the Date" & our 2026 Honorary Degree Recipient

Mark your calendars for our upcoming Commencement Ceremony, which will take place on Sunday, May 3, 2026 starting at 2:30pm. It will be held in the Gilder Lehrman Hall at the Morgan Library in New York City.

Each year, the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts (IDSVA) awards the Honorary Degree to distinguished members of the art and philosophy community. We are excited to announce that Dr. Sarah Lewis will receive this special honor on Sunday, May 3, 2026, during the IDSVA Commencement Ceremony at the Morgan Library, Gilder Lehrman Hall, in New York City.

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Sarah Lewis is the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities and Associate Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University and the founder of Vision & Justice. She has authored and edited over 60 publications including The Unseen Truth, winner of the American Book Award; the bestseller, The Rise; the award-winning volumes, Carrie Mae Weems and “Vision & Justice”; as well as Coreen Simpson and Race Stories.

Lewis was named to the 2026 TIME List, The Closers, in recognition of her work toward greater equality in the United States. She has organized landmark convenings, founded a Vision & Justice Book Series, and curated exhibitions, including If Emmett Till Lived: Freedom on American Ground, opening at the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago in September 2026. Her writing has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Artforum, and The New York Review of Books, and her work has been the subject of profiles from Vogue to The Boston Globe to The New York Times.

Lewis is the recipient of an honorary degree from Pratt Institute, along with the Walter Channing Cabot Fellowship at Harvard University, the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, the Arthur Danto/ASA Prize from the American Philosophical Association, the Freedom Scholar Award from the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, and the Infinity Award for Critical Writing and Research from the International Center of Photography.