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Gretchen Lyons

Operations Manager
Gretchen Lyons

Gretchen Lyons is a university administrator who has worked extensively supporting and teaching in general education programs. She has more than 15 years of experience in operations management, including 12 years at The University of Chicago, where she served in the Social Sciences Collegiate Division as its divisional administrator. At Chicago, she worked on initiatives to fortify the university’s general education programs, promote faculty engagement with undergraduate research and teaching, build sustainable staffing frameworks, and support curricular innovation.

In addition to her administrative work, Gretchen has taught arts and humanities courses, covering subjects ranging from opera to media theory, at the City College of Chicago and Kirkwood Community College. She has written art criticism for Newcity Chicago, Chicago Art Criticism, and Chicago Art Magazine. Her fine and liberal arts background inflects her approach as an administrator with resourcefulness, curiosity, and rigor.   

Gretchen has an MA in humanities from The University of Chicago, an MFA in studio art from The Art Institute of Chicago, and a BA in art theory and practice from Northwestern University. She is an aspiring Renaissance Woman who likes regression analysis and loves Tolstoy, Joan Didion, Edouard Manet, Jackson Pollock, and Charlie Chaplin.