Both a new dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and chair of theatre were selected over summer.
Becky Spritz, a former associate provost at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, will serve as the new dean of Arts and Sciences. Juan Rivera Lebron, who taught acting and business communication at Carnegie Mellon University, now serves as chair of theatre for Point Park University.
The newly filled positions are some of the biggest changes in a summer of shakeups with the university’s leadership. Several school chair positions — which are limited to three-year terms — changed hands. Five new professors were also hired across different schools within the university.
“It’s always good to have new people circulating into leadership roles,” Shari Payne, provost and senior vice president of academic affairs, said, “because it brings fresh ideas and fresh perspective.”
Payne herself was recently lifted to the provost role over summer, after serving as interim provost prior to her promotion.
Now as the permanent provost, Payne said she is focused on contracting an AI usage policy for the university, which she said she hopes will be complete by the end of the year.
“How and when we allow people to use AI on our campus has a lot of ramifications,” Payne said, “not the least of which includes legal reasons, privacy reasons, technology limitations, resources; there’s a lot of reasons how and why you can use AI on this campus. But in the context of the classroom, how and why you can use it is even different. It’s about the learning experience.”
The other new school heads say they are looking forward to shifting operations within their respective curriculums.
With over 25 years of higher-ed administrative experience at a similar scale university, Dr. Spritz said she knows Point Park’s School of Arts & Sciences needs a long-term leader. The previous dean, Josie Brown, served as dean of Arts & Sciences for two years before leaving for the University of Hartford in July 2024.
“I see it as an opportunity for me to provide stable leadership for the school,” Spritz said. “I’m not planning to go anywhere. So, if I work collaboratively with folks from across the university and can provide that stability and leadership for Arts & Science, I think that will be a great thing.”
And as for the future of Arts & Sciences, Spritz said she isn’t the least bit concerned.
“I don’t think that they would have hired a dean of Arts & Sciences if they weren’t thinking Arts & Sciences would be around,” Spritz said, “because that would be a colossal waste.”
In terms of curriculum, Spritz said she is focused on creating a “mission and vision” for the School of Arts & Sciences, starting a student advisory board and working with exploratory students.
Hot off a career in TV, Broadway and instructing at Carnegie Mellon, Juan Rivera Lebron also said he anticipates some curriculum adjustments for Point Park’s theatre department.
“Our industry right now is changing rapidly, like really, really rapidly,” Lebron said. “So, what I see coming is a lot more integration of technology, and kind of that broader base of knowledge that I think Point Park has the ability to offer students.”
Lebron added that he’d like to see acting skills taught to all COPA disciplines, to allow them to have a “solid foundation” for their future careers. He also said that he hopes curriculum changes will allow COPA students to better market themselves.
“It used to be that you could just be a musical theater person,” Lebron said, “but now you kind of have to know a little bit about how you market yourself, your own business, branding, all of that kind of thing.”
After his term as chair concludes, Lebron said he hopes to continue teaching at Point Park. He currently teaches Intro to Acting along with sophomore acting classes.
