The Notable UT Woman Award recognizes a female faculty or staff member, student, or alumna whose accomplishments bring great distinction to the university.
Caula Beyl
Caula Beyl joined the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources in 2007 as dean. At that time, CASNR was experiencing precipitous declines in enrollment. She hired a dedicated recruiter and they launched some extraordinary recruiting efforts, and college enrollment began growing. Today the college has healthy and sustainable undergraduate numbers, with increased average freshman entrance scores and a substantial increase in the number of honors and high-achieving students.
“I am constantly amazed at her energy as she is a very dynamic and engaged dean as well as an academician that continues to teach upper-level graduate courses and produce scholarly works,” her nominator wrote.
Beyl juggles dual responsibilities to the Knoxville campus and the Institute of Agriculture, while always promoting and enhancing the mission of the college.
One mark of the college’s success is that it has a large number of undergraduates participating in research while being mentored by high-performing faculty members—and many of these students are women.
In the words of her nominator, “Dr. Beyl has established beyond doubt that a woman in a traditionally male-dominated campus can provide superior and effective leadership. Although she treats all faculty and staff equally, she has managed to empower, enable, and place deserving women in important faculty-led and administrative positions in the college.”