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UT Tyler Radio is brought to you by the College

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of Arts and Sciences at the University of

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Texas at Tyler . But what is

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the College of Arts and Sciences ? I'm

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News Director Mike Landis To answer that

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question . Ut Tyler Radio connects with

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College Dean Dr Neal Gray .

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Nearly 20 programs you're over

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, maybe over 20 programs

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if you look at all the degrees , but we have

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10 departments , some with multiple

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degrees , including both

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undergraduate and graduate . So I like to say

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that we're the whole brain

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college .

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I like that You're covering all aspects

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of it . Yep , your background is in the

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sciences area of arts and sciences

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. What's it like to be responsible for

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? Everything from music to literature to criminal

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justice .

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Well , it's incredible and , as I said a moment ago

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, we're the whole brain college , and what I mean by

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that ? As you know , there's this concept

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that's been around for a long time of the left

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brain versus the right brain , right

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the left brain being logic and science

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. You know

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analysis in the right brain

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being creativity and innovation , and

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I had been a scientist my whole life

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. I

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thought only about science , really

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, but also and especially the

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arts , including all the humanities

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, the liberal arts , the fine and the performing

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arts . To me . It was a new beginning

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for me Learn about what they

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do , and maybe I become

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a whole brain person too at some point . But

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what I've realized over time that's been really cool

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, you know about my work with all the

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diverse disciplines we have is that I have

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learned they're absolutely more

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alike than they are different , and

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so there is some middle ground where

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that left and right brain meet and

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creativity and innovation , analysis

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and logic . You don't really do anything

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without all of those things and

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logic , you don't really do anything without all of those things . And so I think

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one beautiful thing about our college is that you know we have

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all of those things that seem

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super different but

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really are way more alike than most people

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imagine , so it's just really been exciting

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, a tremendous opportunity and

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an honor to be able

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to champion , you

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know , things outside of my normal area , and

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so I really have

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enjoyed it .

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Well , perhaps your expertise in chemistry is

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a metaphor knowing the different elements

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, blending them appropriately and

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creating a desired result .

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That's a good way to look at it . You

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know , I think you

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know I've spent my whole life being , you

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know I am a chemist , but also in

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my fun time though , I really do enjoy

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chemistry . I'm a musician Probably

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not a good one , but I have fun with

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it . I'm also a painter , so

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I've spent my life thinking

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about those things as the fun things

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. You know , that really give me

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pleasure in life , and so

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no , I agree , bringing

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all the things together and trying to make them work

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. It's really fun for me to champion the

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disciplines that are outside my normal area

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.

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With responsibility for such a diverse

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academic universe , what have

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been some of your biggest challenges ? The pandemic

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, of course , but what else ?

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I think we're just , we're really large and

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the pandemic certainly is something

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you know , you say besides the pandemic

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, but it's hard to ignore how much that's

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changed higher education

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, I think mostly

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in good ways , because I think , even though

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the pandemic itself was bad , it forced

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us into a situation where we had to learn

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about new technologies

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, new ways to do things that

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I think we would have gotten to eventually

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anyway . That

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changes how we teach and meet

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the learning demands of this new generation

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. So I think there's some good things that came out

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that we were kind of forced to do faster

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than normal . But

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other challenges are for me

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. You know , I try to be a people person . I'm

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one of those people that try to make everyone

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happy , you know . Good luck

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with that . Yeah , I know , I know and

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I see a lot of that in you too , mike . And

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so the biggest challenge for me is trying

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to always win and knowing that sometimes

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, you know , you're not always

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going to be

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victorious in every scenario . So

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it's been a challenge to understand

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that on the very large scale of

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our big college , but

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it's just been incredible

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. I wouldn't change it for anything .

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There are so many departments to be proud of . Can you

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share some success stories that come to mind ?

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Sure , I can give you . Well

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, how long do you have , mike ? Well , keep going

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. We've got 10 departments over 20 degrees

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. I could give you success stories in every single

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one . I'll give you some recent ones , sure , and

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ones that kind of relate to this idea that

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I'm a scientist that is

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also a champion for the arts . Our

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music program has just been incredible . You

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know , they have doubled their majors

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in a matter of a year because they

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have put

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a lot of effort into actually recruiting

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and going out to schools and visiting

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with band directors and students

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and bands at the local high schools , and

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they have doubled their majors and

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then look to double them again

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this

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upcoming year . So our music

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program , which you'll see everywhere all the time , and

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I encourage you , if you haven't listened to some of our

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ensembles , our jazz band and

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the like , oh my gosh , go do it

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. Yeah , dr Sarah Roberts has done such a great

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job . Yeah , she's incredible . So I'm

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really proud of the success that our music

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program has had . I

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could give many other examples

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. One new area that I'm really proud

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of within the college is a

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few years ago we actually developed

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a new program in social work , and

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so recently , just last week

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, we learned that our social work received

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their final accreditation from

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the Council of Social Work Education

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and so they are now

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nationally accredited program . So

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we went from zero a few years ago to now this incredible , large and fully accredited program

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. Very proud of that . To me it's just another important facet of what we do in a college that

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puts the universe in the university , and

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so really proud of

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that also and like I said

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, mike , I could go every department and start

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listing off Every department

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should be very proud of the things that

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they are doing , and I know

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that I certainly am .

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Full disclosure here . You're my boss . You

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got the idea of a UT Tyler radio station

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off the ground and I got to be a part

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of its assembly and startup . As we head

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into three years now on the air , there's

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been considerable evolution in our mission

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and in our programming . Some of it's

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been growing pains , huh .

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Well , yeah , of course , I think we were launched

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during the pandemic really , where

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you know , whatever you wanted to be during

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the pandemic , you had to kind of check

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that a little bit and think , all right

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, where do we want to be in the future

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and when can we really start that

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journey ? So there was a lot of just

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survival making

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sure all the hardware worked and all the software

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worked .

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We had a blank sheet of paper . Essentially we did

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. I mean , we didn't take a radio station that already

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existed and make it work . We bought a

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frequency and then took it from there .

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That's right , and so the goal has

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always been to move

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forward our mission as an institution

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, and that this would be one way that we could do

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it . So for me , it's always

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about education . You know

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how can we use

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KVUT to

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educate , to

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celebrate the fine arts , hopefully

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, I've already established I'm a big champion . We

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are too Of the arts , and so

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how do we actually celebrate

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and show the importance of the fine

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and the performing arts , especially in the audio

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sense , the performing arts , right . So

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we love the idea of jazz because it's a lot

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of what we do . So we love

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the idea of jazz because it's a

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lot of what we do . So growing pains , because it's a big effort and

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where you want to be is not

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necessarily where you are at the very

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beginning . You have to walk that road

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and thanks

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to you and your colleagues

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here within the radio station

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, we are just doing a really good

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job of moving things forward toward

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that final mission of being kind of

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this fine arts educational

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radio , where I hope that

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we can give a voice to our . We

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have more experts . We

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have an expert on everything , just about on the campus

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right , we do .

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You're on this campus right .

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Yeah , so we have a little bit of a hostage

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group

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of experts that we can take advantage of .

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I was thinking of it as bench strength .

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There you go , we have a deep bench .

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We have a deep bench .

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So if we want to talk about history

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, we certainly have

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people that can come in and talk about history . If

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we want to talk about medicine or

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thing and that's what's really cool about a university

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having this kind of access is

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that we are able to bring the

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knowledge and experience

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of our faculty to bear , but

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not only that , so giving them a voice , right

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to be able to share things that

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people are interested in , and by the way , it doesn't always

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have to be super

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like dry

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knowledgeable things .

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They're relevant . That's the thing I've enjoyed about talking

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to people here on campus . They are able to

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take what they do on a daily basis

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and make it relevant to right now , which

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is really how you communicate with students

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, anyway , yeah , relevant , and sometimes just cool

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and fun .

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For example , you know , if you have a novelist

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and we do they can come in and talk about creative

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writing and things . Who doesn't want to be a novelist ? If they've do , they can come in and talk about creative

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writing and things . Who doesn't want to be a novelist ? If they've read in their

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life ?

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Everyone wants to be a writer right , and Tara

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Proper actually talked about how you get published

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. This is at first . You have to grow a thick skin

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, that's right .

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An amazing poet , by the way . Yes , exactly

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. And another very good

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author , a novelist , glenn Blake

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on the faculty

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. That's just an incredible writer .

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Yeah , and Bebe has really

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got into podcasting and is

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doing a great service in terms of letting people

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know . What does an English literature

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degree mean ? It means that

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you got a better chance of getting a really

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good job because you're ready .

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That's right . And if you haven't listened to her

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stuff , I encourage you to go do that . It's just

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incredible , that's right . And if you haven't listened

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to her stuff , I encourage you to go do that . It's just incredible . So

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my hope always with the radio station is that we

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provide informative and

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beautiful things for our community and

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we also give the opportunity for our

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community to

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benefit East Texas

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. And how do we give our experts a voice ? How

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do we give members of the community a voice

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to talk about things that

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are educational and interesting

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but also fun ? And

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those things take time , right . So

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you don't just throw a radio station

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together overnight and as a chemist I learned

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that pretty quick and

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that's been fun but

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you because there is a

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kind of technical side to it . It

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takes some time . But then there is the

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content side .

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I think that with a lot of brand new ventures

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, you find that you find out pretty quickly what

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you didn't know . You didn't know .

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Yeah , that is true . And going back

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to one of your previous questions about what are

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some of the things I'm most excited

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about , you know , in our college that

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we work with is certainly KVUT

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is at the top of that . It's something that

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I'm very proud of . I'm

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very proud of you guys

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and what you are doing , and

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it's just one of those things that I feel like

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, hey , I can just step back

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and let it happen , and if you need

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something , you know I'll go get you that something

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you know .

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this is being recorded .

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We're going to play this back for you . I know that's right

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.

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You have any final thoughts you'd like to share ?

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I would end with saying I really love this place

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. I do , and

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I think it's a great institution . We

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are now at the precipice of what

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we're going to be moving forward , because

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I feel like every five years we

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move forward in a big

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way you know Dramatic

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. Then I was here as a student too , so I have

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seen UT Tyler pretty

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much its whole life and

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I have seen so many changes and

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every change has been very positive

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and moving in a good direction , and

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I feel like that is continuing

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right now in a very accelerated way

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.

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Thanks for listening as UT Tyler Radio connects

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with Arts and Sciences College Dean Dr

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Neil Gray . For UT Tyler Radio

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News , I'm Mike Landis .