The new Dean of the College of Art and Sciences offers much to UW, including plans for the future and an extensive scientific background.
After working as a scientist specializing in biomedical research and immunology, Dr. Paula Lutz’s administrative career began in a small biology department where she worked as a professor and administrator for 20 years to help build a graduate program.
One thing Lutz is looking forward to with her new role as the new Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences is getting to know and working with the students, faculty and staff at the University of Wyoming, she said.
Lutz attended Duke University while working on her dissertation in microbiology and immunology.
“I did research in cancer and tumor immunology for quite some time while I was training,” she said.
After she began her career at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, she continued working in immunology but changed her focus to immunotoxicology, looking at the effects of lead on the immune system in children.
In 2007, Lutz moved the Montana State University to be Dean of Letters and Science. MSU, like UW, is a land grant campus and Lutz said she was looking forward to staying within the land grant system when she comes to Wyoming. Without a Fine Arts program, her college at MSU was slightly smaller than the College of Arts and Sciences at UW.
“It had all the humanities except fine arts, so I’m delighted to have the fine arts back, so to speak,” Lutz said.
Though her goals are not concrete, her vision for the future of the college is grounded in making sure that students receive a well-rounded education.
“In arts and sciences we do a lot of what I call ‘foundation teaching,’” Lutz said. “The basic foundation of a liberal arts and sciences background that, to me, is the heart and soul of a university education.”
“It’s the rare student whose life we wouldn’t touch before they left the university,” she added.
With the changing and developing interests in cutting-edge fields of study and the university’s growing population, Lutz said she felt like it was important to plan in order to meet these changing demands.
“Thirty years ago when I started in academia, forensic science was not a big major, but today it’s extremely popular and something that students are very interested in. We see a lot of demand for students who have at least some training in those kinds of areas.”
Lutz said she likes to learn new things and solve problems.
“Sometimes when you get interviewed you get asked interesting questions,” she said. “For a previous job I was asked what I like to read and I love to read mysteries, and the person responded with ‘oh, so you like to solve problems.’ I never thought about it that way. So, I think solving problems, doing research, finding the answer to a problem has been very important to me, both in my scientific career and my personal life.”
Lutz says she was encouraged to apply for the Dean’s position because of how people she knew spoke about the university.
“I knew people working here or who have worked here who spoke very highly of the university,” she said.
She said she was also impressed with the way the university has gone about the strategic planning for the last 15 years and how it is preparing to meet the needs of students over the next five years. She said it was important that changes in leadership did not drastically change the direction, mission and values of the university.
“I think that’s a little disturbing to the force, shall we say, at a university if it changes like that too much,” she said.
