Grande Lum

Grande Lum is the Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Menlo College, a small, private, non-profit Silicon Valley school that focuses on business education with a strong liberal arts emphasis. Mr. Lum serves as the Chief Academic Officer and determines the vision and provides leadership for all academic programs. He is responsible for all operations of the College as they relate to academic leadership and program development, curriculum, accreditation, institutional research, personnel management, budget planning, and fiscal management. In this role, Mr. Lum also oversees fundraising and alumni relations.

Previously he was Director of the Divided Community Project (DCP) at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, where he also served as a Distinguished Practitioner in Residence. DCP’s mission is to strengthen communities so they can transform community division into positive action. DCP’s initiatives include establishing programs in advance of civil unrest. In 2018, the American Bar Association Dispute Resolution Section awarded the Lawyer as Problem Solver Award to DCP. Mr. Lum was also a Lecturer at Law and Research Fellow at Stanford Law School. Mr. Lum currently serves as a Senior Advisor to Nextdoor, a social network company, My90, a civic tech startup and JuriLytics, a legal tech startup.

Previously, Grande Lum was nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate in 2012 as the Director of the Community Relations Service (CRS), an agency within the Department of Justice. Mr. Lum guided CRS during a time when race and law enforcement reemerged as a critical national priority. CRS focuses on preventing and resolving racial and ethnic tensions, and in restoring stability and harmony. In addition, CRS also works with communities to employ strategies to prevent and respond to alleged violent hate crimes committed on the basis of actual or perceived race, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion or disability. During his tenure, Mr. Lum expanded services in the areas of Transgender and Law Enforcement interaction, anti-Muslim hate crime prevention, Intellectual Disabilities and Restorative Practices.

Before joining CRS, Grande Lum was a clinical professor at the University of California Hastings School of the Law, where he directed the Center for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution. Mr. Lum implemented the law school’s alternative dispute resolution curriculum, the largest (by student enrollment) in the country. He led the Center to first US News Report top law school dispute resolution program ranking ever in 2010. Mr. Lum previously founded the training firm Accordence, where he remains Senior Advisor. He was also Director of the Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) Program in the United States Small Business Administration. The HUBZone program provides federal government contracting assistance to businesses located in disadvantaged areas including poor urban and rural areas, Native American reservations, and military base closure areas.

In 2016, Grande Lum received The Mediation Society’s Outstanding Contribution to the Field Award. The Society of Asian Federal Officers honored him as its Person of the Year for 2014. While he was CRS Director, CRS received the American Bar Association Dispute Resolution Section Lawyer as Problem Solver Award in 2014 and the Association of Conflict Resolution Peacemaker Award in 2013.

During his career, Mr. Lum has mediated labor-management contract issues and conflicts involving differences such as race and religion. In addition he has facilitated educational reform and change initiatives. He authored The Negotiation Fieldbook and Tear Down the Wall: Be Your Own Mediator in Conflict. Mr. Lum received his B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley, and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.