Acclaimed Soprano Martina Arroyo, Business Leader Greg Brown, Educator Shireen Lewis to Receive Honorary Degrees at Rutgers' 246th Commencement on May 13

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – An American soprano renowned as much for her commitment to developing emerging opera singers as her own performances and recordings; a visionary businessman and civic leader; and an educator-mentor dedicated to helping young women of color earn college degrees, especially doctorates, will receive honorary degrees at Rutgers’ 246th anniversary Commencement Sunday, May 13.

Rutgers will honor Martina Arroyo, a dominant force in the international opera world whose foundation helps develop the necessary stagecraft and dramatic skills of talented young artists (Doctor of Fine Arts); Commencement speaker and alumnus Greg Brown, chairman and CEO of Motorola Solutions (Doctor of Humane Letters); and alumna Shireen Lewis, founder of  SisterMentors, a program under the umbrella of a nonprofit organization, EduSeed, which promotes education among historically disadvantaged and underserved communities (Doctor of Humane Letters).

The announcement was made at today’s Board of Governors meeting here.

Arroyo, born in New York City and raised in Harlem, credits her parents with nurturing her singing career and urging the need for higher education. She graduated from Hunter College at 19, taught Italian in the city’s public schools and also was a case worker for New York’s Welfare Department. In 1958, she won the Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air and debuted at Carnegie Hall.

Arroyo journeyed to Europe where she won popular critical acclaim, and as the daughter of an African-American mother and Puerto Rican father, she broke down racial barriers as a member of the first generation of black opera singers to achieve international success. By 1965, she returned to the United States and received a standing ovation for her Aida at the Met. She was the featured performer in opening Metropolitan Opera productions three times.

Arroyo, who has performed on the stages of the world’s most prestigious opera houses and is famous for her interpretations of Verdi, Puccini, Strauss and Mozart heroines, has become one of opera’s most effective ambassadors. In 2003, she established the Martina Arroyo Foundation to nurture the skills of operatic students, including some from Rutgers. Hundreds of singers worldwide audition annually for the foundation’s Prelude to Performance. The six-week intensive training program for young singers culminates in four fully staged opera performances complete with sets, costumes and orchestras in a prominent New York venue.

Brown, who grew up in North Brunswick and Highland Park, N.J., is a visionary business leader respected for his keen management insight, analytical ability and pragmatism, all of which have contributed to his career accomplishments and the success of his employers. He attended Livingston College (now part of Rutgers’ School of Arts and Sciences), from which he graduated with an economics degree in 1982.

After graduation, he held a variety of sales and marketing positions with AT&T before serving as president of Ameritech Custom Business Services and Ameritech New Media Inc. Then he became chairman and chief executive officer of Micromuse Inc., a publicly traded network-management software company.

Brown demonstrated his ability to rise to challenges when in 2003 he joined Motorola as president of a division that handles government and public safety communications solutions. After leading the company’s $3.9 billion acquisition of tech firm Symbol Technologies, he was elected to the board of directors in 2007 and was named chief executive officer the following year. He successfully pulled Motorola through a drastic overhaul of its business and was instrumental in improving the morale of its 60,000 employees worldwide.

In addition to his responsibilities as chairman and chief executive officer of Motorola Solutions, the leading provider of mission critical communications to governments and enterprises, Brown is an active member of the business and civic communities. President Obama appointed him to serve on the President’s Management Advisory Board as well as the Skills for America’s Future board. He is on the executive committee of the U.S.-China Business Council and serves as a member of The Business Council, Business Roundtable and the Technology CEO Council. A resident of Illinois, he serves in his local community as a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago, Northwestern Memorial Hospital and on the board of directors of World Business Chicago, and also helped recruit corporations to the city.

A longtime supporter of Rutgers, he contributed funds toward the new recruiting pavilion and welcome center at High Point Solutions Stadium and supports the Rutgers Psychological Clinic at the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology. In 2010, he was inducted into Rutgers’ Hall of Distinguished Alumni. He is an active supporter of cancer research, serving as a member of the American Cancer Society Discovery Ball Board of Ambassadors since 2008 and as vice chair of the Illinois Chapter of CEOs Against Cancer.

Lewis was born and raised in a small village in Trinidad and Tobago, where the prime minister of the newly independent nation held a doctorate from Oxford University and became a role model for many young citizens seeking an education. Lewis attended her first school when she was 8 and was inspired by a young teacher to excel in class, which profoundly

changed her life. She eventually became a teacher and dean in an all-girls high school in her hometown.

She later attended Douglass College (now part of Rutgers’ School of Arts and Sciences) and, after graduating in 1986, went on to earn a law degree from the University of Virginia and a doctorate in French from Duke University. Lewis has practiced law, taught at several universities and made a significant contribution to her field of French and Francophone literature with her book, Race, Culture and Identity: Francophone West African Literature and Theory from Négritude to Créolité.

During the process of completing her doctoral thesis, Lewis suffered feelings of loneliness and isolation and nearly abandoned her quest. In 1997, she organized a group of four women in similar circumstances to form a support group that took the name SisterMentors. Each woman eventually earned her doctorate.

Lewis co-founded EduSeed and serves as executive director of the organization. Thus far, Lewis’s award-winning and empowering program, Sister Mentors, has helped 17 young women of color go to college and 41 women of color to earn doctoral degrees, many of whom have gone on to become university professors and leaders of nonprofits. The program also mentors young girls of color, ages 9 to 18, helping to keep them on the path to college.

Among Lewis’s many honors are the Rutgers Associate Alumnae of Douglass College Alumnae Recognition Award (2005) and being named an “Unsung Hero” by Ebony magazine (2009). Her work with SisterMentors has been documented in the book Visionaries in Our Midst: Ordinary People Who Are Changing Our World.