W. Jack Lewis served Cornell as Director of Cornell United Religious Work from 1963-81. An ordained minister, Lewis was educated at the University of Texas at Austin and the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Prior to coming to Cornell, he served as a chaplain with the U.S. Navy in the Pacific theater in World War II, where he ministered to one of the first African-American Marine Corp units. After the war, he worked with university students as a Presbyterian minister in Austin, Texas. In the early 1950s, he founded the Christian Faith and Life Community, a residential, coeducational, and racially integrated lay center for University of Texas students.

During his tenure at CURW, Lewis helped establish a host of enduring community services. Among them were the Festival of Black Gospel, the Center for Religion, Ethics and Social Policy (CRESP), Suicide Prevention and Crisis Service, Pastoral Counseling Service, the Commons Coffee House at Anabel Taylor Hall, and Hospicare. In his retirement years, he helped set up the hospital chaplaincy at Cayuga Medical Center and he organized the Hospital Visitation Program supported by Cornell’s Human Resources office.