John D. Evans, a member of the UMSI Advisory Board, has been recommended to receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Michigan at its 2024 Winter Commencement. 

U-M awards honorary degrees to influential individuals who might serve to inspire students. Evans was recommended for his remarkable achievements in media, advocacy and philanthropy.

He has spent decades working as a significant and positive change-maker within the worlds of media, AIDS research, philanthropy, political transparency, the LGBTQ+ community and his alma mater, U-M.

At the School of Information, he established the John Derby Evans Endowed Professorship of Information in 2017. On the UMSI Advisory Board, Evans helps to advance UMSI’s mission by providing expertise to UMSI leadership and philanthropic support to the school. 

Born and raised in Detroit, Evans earned a bachelor’s degree in 1966 from U-M, where he was station manager of campus radio station WCBN. He also was a Washtenaw County deputy sheriff. After graduating, Evans served in the U.S. Navy on the USS America and USS John F. Kennedy, and was also on the Chief of Naval Operations staff.

In 1976, Arlington Telecommunications Corp. recruited Evans to build the first cable system in the Washington, D.C., metro area. After the House of Representatives installed a closed-circuit TV system, Evans and his friend Brian Lamb saw the potential to better inform the public on government proceedings.

They and industry colleagues founded the nonprofit Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, or C-SPAN. When the House overwhelmingly passed a historic resolution to permit gavel-to-gavel coverage in late 1977, C-SPAN began, for the first time, to provide unfiltered public affairs coverage.

Evans’ leadership roles for C-SPAN spanned 44 years and, in 2016, he was inducted into the national Cable Hall of Fame.

Outside of his work in media, he established the John D. Evans Foundation, which supports AIDS and cancer research, environmental issues, technological innovation, the arts and higher education.

In 2001, he received the League of African American Women’s award for the Waterford Project, an initiative using the internet to accelerate collaborative research into HIV/AIDS. He currently chairs the American Medical Association Foundation’s LGBTQ+ Health Commission.

At U-M, Evans has supported several LGBTQ+ initiatives and scholarships, and provided funding for the International LGBTQ Psychology Summer Institute. He created the John D. Evans Fund for Media and Technology and serves on several advisory boards. 

Others recommended for honorary degrees by U-M’s Honorary Degree Committee are:

• Rebecca Blumenstein, U-M alumna and president of editorial at NBC News, 2024 Winter Commencement speaker (Doctor of Laws)
• Henry Louis Gates Jr., literary scholar, educator, historian and TV host (Doctor of Humane Letters)
• Margaret H. Hamilton, pioneering systems and software engineer and computer scientist (Doctor of Engineering)

The degrees are pending approval by the Board of Regents at its Dec. 5 meeting.

Read the full announcement in the University Record. 

—Abigail McFee, marketing and communications writer