Lynda Paul is Associate Director for Undergraduate Writing and Tutoring and the Academic Strategies Program at Yale, the flagship program of the Office of Educational Opportunity (part of both the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning and Yale College). In this role, she manages a staff of approximately 85 undergraduate Peer Mentors and 15 graduate student Lead Mentors in best practices in mentorship; creates and develops Academic Strategies programming (including Yale’s Language Tasting); directs Arts and Humanities Fridays; manages public speaking support; works 1-1 with students in an advisory and academic coaching role; and leads a variety of workshops for students, including writing workshops for undergraduate international students and Directed Studies students, and Academic Strategies workshops of many kinds. 

Dr. Paul is a devoted mentor, teacher, and advocate with a special interest in educational equity and holistic academic support for historically underrepresented students currently navigating Yale, including: first-generation/lower-income college students (FGLI); BIPOC students; international students; students across the spectrum of neurodiversity; students affected by trauma and other mental health challenges; and students in LGBTQIA+ communities. She works with the understanding that difference (among people, perspectives, and ways of thinking) is the norm and not the exception, and believes strongly in an intersectional, student-centered, community-oriented, strengths-based, research-supported, trauma-informed, and context-dependent approach to her work. Dr. Paul has been at Yale since 2005, and in this time has served as a college advisor and senior thesis advisor to numerous students, worked as one of the Residential College Writing Tutors, and taught interdisciplinary classes listed in nine different departments at Yale—most frequently teaching in Music, English, and Theater Studies. Courses she has taught at Yale include Theater History, 1700-Present; Introduction to Dramaturgy; Cabaret; Alternate Realities; Richard III (with Joseph Roach); The Ballets Russes; Reading and Writing the Modern Essay (English 120); and Disney and Society (English 114). Courses she has taught sections for include Shakespeare: Comedies and Romances; Music 110 (musicianship skills); Music Cognition; Music History, 1750-present; Theater History, Ancient through 1750; Listening to Music; and Popular Music (music theory).

Her professional work beyond the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning extends across a variety of creative, analytical, and academic domains of the arts and humanities, including dramaturgical writing and consultation for a number of arts companies. She has also worked professionally as a classical musician (multi-instrumentalist and vocalist), theater/opera stage director, choreographer, and certified jazzercise instructor. Beyond her professional work, she has a passion for oil painting, is actively involved in disability rights advocacy at Yale, and has served as a volunteer staffer at several local and national organizations committed to supporting the needs of various populations, including recent immigrants/refugees; LGBTQIA+ youth; students with literacy needs; and survivors of sexual assault. Dr. Paul also holds a lifelong passion for anything related to language(s) and history, and believes that knowledge in both of these areas is essential to understanding and engaging with the world today. To that end, she has studied French, German, Portuguese, Italian, and ASL, in addition to singing and interacting in a variety of other languages, and she maintains a historically and culturally informed approach to everything she does.

Dr. Paul holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, the University of Rochester, the University of Chicago, the David Geffen School of Drama (formerly Yale School of Drama), and Yale’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, where she received distinction on her PhD in music history/ethnomusicology/performance studies.