Provost Staff
Janet Levit
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
Janet Levit serves as The University of Tulsa’s provost and executive vice president for academic affairs for TU. She also serves as the institution’s Higher Learning Commission Accreditation Liaison Officer.
Levit, who holds degrees from Yale University (JD and MA, 1994) and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University (AB, magna cum laude, 1990), is TU’s first female provost and previously served as the first female dean of the TU College of Law, where she continues as a professor.
Before being named provost in April 2018, Levit served as vice president for strategic initiatives and successfully structured TU’s five-year strategic plan, charting the next phase in the evolution of the university.
As dean of TU Law, Levit led faculty and staff in improving student outcomes, containing legal education costs, reorienting the curriculum toward experiential learning and innovating around the core JD program to offer accessible, targeted legal training to those beyond traditional law school students.
Levit’s off-campus work has garnered her numerous honors including Tulsa’s Women of the Year Pinnacle Award, Anna C. Roth Legacy Award, TU Law Hall of Fame, James C. Lang Mentoring Award and “50 Making a Difference” Circle of Excellence. She currently is a member of the Mayor’s Commission on the Status of Women.
janet-levit@utulsa.edu
918-631-2554
Richard A. Redner
Ph.D., Senior Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs
In his role as senior vice provost, Professor Richard Redner is responsible for assessing the academic standards of the university and ensuring that the university maintains its regional and specialized accreditation. He serves as the liaison between the colleges and athletics and chairs the Associate Deans’ Council. Redner balances his administrative duties with his duties as a professor of mathematical sciences in the College of Engineering and Natural Sciences.
Redner served as a National Research Council Associate at the Johnson Space Center from 1978 to 1980, performing research in clustering, pattern recognition and statistics before joining TU’s math department. He was named a TU Outstanding Teacher in 1992.
After serving as the graduate program adviser and associate chair of the Department of Mathematics, he joined the Graduate School staff in 2001, where he served as the associate dean of research and graduate studies until 2018 when he joined the provost’s staff. Redner also serves as a Higher Learning Commission Accreditation peer reviewer.
rredner@utulsa.edu
918-631-2554
John M. Bury
Senior Vice Provost for Operations and Student Success
John M. Bury’s areas of responsibility include ensuring that TU students are successful through his oversight of the Center for Student Academic Success and the registrar, where credit hours and grades are tracked to ensure that students’ journeys to graduation go as planned. He also oversees institutional research and data analysis for the university, providing the statistics that measure TU’s strengths — student-faculty ratio, diversity of the student body (in-state, out-of-state and international as well as multicultural), overall grade-point average, percentages of scholarships rewarded, etc. Because he has a bird’s eye view of the underpinnings of TU, he also serves as a Higher Learning Commission Accreditation peer reviewer, ensuring that the university maintains its accreditation.
john-bury@utulsa.edu
918-631-2359
Tracy Suter
Vice President for Strategic Initiatives
Professor Tracy Suter’s responsibilities focus upon catalyzing a campus-wide culture of innovation. This focus includes university-level strategic priorities around creative, design and divergent thinking to enhance global education, honors and other co-curricular programs with both campus and community impacts. In addition to his responsibilities in the Office of the Provost, Suter teaches in the Innovation, Change and Entrepreneurship program. He is TU’s de facto chief innovation evangelist.
The co-author of two textbooks and a weekly digital newsletter for the Staying Gold Society, Suter has received numerous awards and honors for outstanding teaching over the course of his career including the 2018 Mayo Teaching Excellence Award in the Collins College of Business.
tracy-suter@utulsa.edu
918-631-2554
Wendy Buss
Senior Associate to the Provost/Exec VP of Academic Affairs
Wendy Buss works closely with the provost’s executive support staff to provide leadership and direction for change management initiatives, project management and program development on behalf of the provost. She advises and collaborates on initiatives for the provost through excellent working relationships with offices of key stakeholders including senior vice provosts, vice provosts, deans, the president and TU’s Board of Trustees. Buss attends selected meetings with the provost and provides organizational support for university accreditation reporting and on-site visits.
wendy-buss@utulsa.edu
918-631-2436
Mindi Fuser
Director of Academic Budgets & Fiscal Affairs
Mindi Fuser supports the Office of the Provost by managing the annual operating budget for Academic Affairs and by monitoring the fiscal and programmatic operations of the associated colleges and departments. She works closely with the senior vice provost for operations and student success to support academic planning and institutional goals.
Fuser also helps to coordinate the financial review effort of the strategic plan and provides support for the university and college/program accreditations.
mjf3917@utulsa.edu
918-631-2582
Lauren Wagner
Administrative Associate to the Provost
Lauren Wagner edits the Undergraduate Bulletin and manages the publication process for the Graduate and Law Bulletins. She serves as secretary to the Dean’s Council, the University Curriculum Committee and the Board of Trustees’ Faculty and Curriculum Committee. She administers the Digital Measures Activity Insight and Workflow faculty activity recordkeeping systems. She supports the Honors Program and performs other duties as assigned.
lauren-wagner@utulsa.edu
918-631-2530
Patt Joyce
Assistant to the Provost
Patt Joyce assists with the budgetary responsibilities including the processing of requisitions and purchase orders for the Office of the Provost and other academic units. She manages and ensures the smooth operation of the Office of the Provost on a daily basis and is the initial contact person for individuals seeking assistance from the Office of the Provost.
patricia-joyce@utulsa.edu
918-631-2554