Clarence G. Newsome is the President of Shaw University in North Carolina. He is a native of the Eastern North Carolina town of Ahoskie and the son of a school principal. Dr. Newsome received his bachelor's from Duke University. While at Duke, he lettered in football and was twice named to the Atlantic Coast Conference All-Academic Team. Dr. Newsome was Duke's first Black student commencement speaker, delivering an address called "An African Concept of Time and a Theme of Liberation in the World Community."

Dr. Newsome went on to obtain a master's of divinity at Duke, graduating magna cum laude. He took a year off to serve as acting dean of minority affairs and director of Duke's Summer Transitional Program for high school students.

Dr. Newsome won the James B. Duke Dissertation Year Fellowship while pursuing his doctoral studies. After graduating, he was a popular professor at Duke Divinity School for eight years. While on the faculty, he also served for a time as pastor of a Baptist church and was a leader in the General Baptist Convention of North Carolina, the largest African American Baptist state convention in the United States.

Dr. Newsome became the assistant dean at Howard University School of Divinity in 1986. He became associate dean in 1988. When Dr. Lawrence N. Jones retired in 1991, Dr. Newsome was tapped to be acting dean and the next year was named dean of the divinity school officially.

Dr. Newsome shepherded the School of Divinity through two ten-year re-accreditation reviews and established its first Office of Institutional Advancement and Development. During his years at the helm, applications increased 40 percent.

Dr. Newsome has held several positions in national organizations, among them President of the Society for the Study of Black Religion, a nationwide think tank of scholars engaged in studying the religious experience of African Americans. He has served on the Advisory Committee of the North American-European Theological Seminar of the American Academy of Religion, and on the Board of Directors of the Duke University National Alumni Association. He has also served as the Chairman of the Duke Divinity School Board of Visitors. Moreover, he has served as Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Washington Theological Consortium, an organization of twelve theological schools in the Washington, D.C. and Richmond, Virginia metropolitan areas. In addition, he has served on several major committees of the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada (ATS). In 2002, he was re-elected to the Executive Committee of the ATS, and in that capacity serves as Secretary of the Corporation.
In February 1998, Dr. Newsome was honored by the United States Senate. His name was "read" into the Congressional Record as one of the nation's outstanding religious leaders. A year later, he was invited by the Honorable William Cohen, then Secretary of Defense, to participate in the highly selective Joint Civilian Orientation Conference.

Dr. Newsome is the recipient of many awards and honors. They include the Distinguished Service in Education Award from the Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc., in 2000, and the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Duke Divinity School in 2001. His board memberships include the Aiban Institute of Bethesda, MD, and the Duke University Board of Trustees.