She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the 2020 Medal of Merit for Professional Achievement from the Ohio University Alumni Association. Other honors include the Neil S. Bucklew Award for Social Justice at West Virginia University (WVU). Dr. Lewis has served as a consultant to public stations, and was elected or appointed to numerous national and state public media committees and boards, including the Association of Public Television Stations’ (APTS) Board of Trustees in D. C. as a professional member, receiving a Grassroots Advocate Award; the PBS Public Information Committee; the National Educational Telecommunications Association Public Information Committee; the Magic School Bus Advisory Committee, and the Sesame Workshop Public Affairs Committee.
She is a mentor to students and was instrumental in taking students in the Public Broadcasting program at Ohio University to several APTS Capitol Hill Day meetings in D. C. where they met Members of Congress and Public Media leadership.
Dr. Lewis taught in the Scripps College of Communication, teaching classes for both the Schools of Communication Studies and Media Arts & Studies. Courses included Cross-Cultural Communication, Gender and Communication, Women and Health Communication, Media Management, Women and the Media, and Public Media Leadership and Management in the Digital Environment. She is currently an adjunct professor for Hocking College, teaching public speaking, serves on several local and state committees, and is a golden member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, Alpha Sigma Omega Chapter. Dr. Lewis is an ordained minister, has two adult children and two grandchildren.
She earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in Journalism from WVU in Morgantown, the first African American woman to graduate with an undergraduate degree in Journalism from WVU and she earned a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University. She is an advocate for accessibility and inclusion and consults on those issues. She and her daughter Caryn M. Bailey founded the Dr. Carolyn Foster Bailey Lewis Family Foundation, a charitable organization which promotes health, wellness, and education for those with acute chronic illnesses and disabilities (www.drcarolynfosterbaileylewisff.org) and LifeDay Greeting Cards, Inc., a unique greeting card line celebrating survival from a life-altering event. Dr. Lewis is also the author of Love and Loss: The Storied Nature of Nursing Home Care. Both cards and book are available through Amazon and The Little Professor Book Center in Athens.