Tara Tuttle
Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Lewis Honors College
Dr. Tara M. Tuttle (she/her) is the Assistant Dean of Diversity and Inclusion and a Senior Lecturer in the Lewis Honors College. She has a secondary appointment as Assistant Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies. Dr. Tuttle is also affiliate faculty of the Center for Equality and Social Justice. Her research examines the intersections of religious belief and female sexuality in contemporary U.S. culture and the deployment of scriptural rhetoric to challenge oppression. Her work has appeared in The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, Studies in Popular Culture, The Journal of Catholic Higher Education, and other publications.
Dr. Tuttle has a Ph.D. in Humanities with an emphasis in 20th century American culture, a graduate certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies from the University of Louisville, and an MA in Humanities from Indiana State University. Passionate about Honors education, she worked in the Honors Program at Indiana State University, taught Honors courses as affiliate faculty in the Honors Program at Ball State University, and developed the Honors Program at St. Catharine College (now closed) before joining the faculty in the Lewis Honors College here at the University of Kentucky.
Dr. Tuttle's research examines contemporary women writers’ uses of scriptural allusion to challenge conventional understandings of gender and justice. She is interested in the ways in which members of marginalized or contested groups deploy biblical allusion to prompt reconsiderations of hierarchical interpretations of scripture used to validate social, political, and legal inequities as moral or divinely mandated.
Expand and Restructure Roles of College and Unit D&I Officers
Dr. Tuttle is a co-lead for the Expand and Restructure Roles of College and Unit D&I Officers initiative. This committee will draft recommendations and suggestions related to the existing roles of D&I Officers across campus.