Lynda Paul runs the Academic Strategies Program, a hidden curriculum-oriented student success program that she helped Dean Karin Gosselink build and which is now the foundation of the Office of Educational Opportunity. In this role, she supports the empowerment of students, helping them take full ownership over their educational choices, experiences, and trajectories so that they can thrive as their fullest and most genuine selves at this institution and beyond. In service of this mission, Dr. Paul trains and manages a staff of over 100 student peer mentors; creates and leads a variety of programming; and works 1-1 with students in an advisory and academic coaching capacity.
Dr. Paul is a devoted mentor, teacher, and student advocate. Her current work is centered on first-generation/lower-income (FGLI), BIPOC, and international students; students across the spectrum of neurodiversity; students affected by trauma and other mental health challenges; and students in LGBTQIA+ communities. Her approach is fundamentally intersectional, strengths-based, and context-dependent. It is also informed by her background knowledge, training, and cross-cultural experiences in the areas of pedagogy, cognition/psychology, social work/sociology, critical theory, history, language(s), and the arts.
Dr. Paul has been at Yale since 2005. Over the past two decades, she has worked with hundreds of Yale students in her various roles as faculty member, administrator, advisor, post-doctoral associate, residential college writing tutor, and graduate student. She has presented her research at local, national, and international conferences, and is frequently invited to be a guest speaker in Yale courses. Outside of Yale, her professional work and publications extend across a variety of creative, analytical, and academic domains of the arts, social sciences, and humanities. She is also a passionate oil painter, is actively involved in disability rights advocacy, and has volunteered with several organizations that support the needs of vulnerable populations, such as at-risk LGBTQIA+ youth and survivors of sexual assault.
Dr. Paul holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music (B.M.), University of Rochester (B.A.), University of Chicago (M.A.), David Geffen School of Drama (formerly Yale School of Drama) (M.F.A.), and Yale’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, where she received distinction on her Ph.D. in 2012.