(Feb. 27, 2019) — Daniel J. Gelo, dean of the UTSA College of Liberal and Fine Arts and Stumberg Distinguished University Chair, this week announced his plans to retire from UTSA, effective Aug. 31, 2019.
A professor of anthropology, Gelo currently is UTSA’s longest-serving dean, having led the college since 2002. He joined UTSA as an assistant professor in 1988. He served as associate director and interim director of the Division of Behavioral and Cultural Sciences, and chair of the Department of Anthropology, before being appointed interim dean in 2002 and dean in 2004.
“It is with reluctance and deep appreciation that I accept Dean Gelo’s decision and thank him for his deep commitment and broad impact to the university and the college,” said Kimberly Andrews Espy, provost and vice president for academic affairs. “He has been a steadfast advocate for UTSA, a trusted colleague, and I and many others will miss his wisdom and ethics, which will be used as a benchmark and legacy for the faculty, staff and students of UTSA.”
Because the academic year is so close to completion, Espy said, she would appoint an interim dean soon and commence a national search for a new dean next fall.
Under Gelo’s leadership, the College of Liberal and Fine Arts (COLFA) has grown to become UTSA’s largest college, with more than 7,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Sixty-five percent of the college’s current tenured/tenure-track faculty were recruited under Gelo’s deanship. During his term, external research funding in the college rose from less than $1 million per year to approximately $5 million annually. Gelo participated in raising over $15 million in gifts and pledges to COLFA over the last decade, and 64 new scholarship and faculty endowments were created during his deanship.
As dean, Gelo established Philosophy and Classics as an independent department and launched doctoral programs in English, Anthropology, and Psychology, along with master’s programs in Philosophy, Geography, and Global Affairs, and undergraduate programs in Global Affairs, Law and Politics, and Museum Studies. He co-developed the Public Health bachelor’s degree program, and designed and established the Medical Humanities bachelor’s program, now two of the largest of their kind in the nation.
“I am enormously grateful to Provost Espy, President Eighmy, past UTSA leaders and my colleagues for providing a rewarding and fulfilling academic career,” Gelo said. “I am proud to have served at UTSA during its period of significant growth over the last 31 years, and leave knowing our institution has the brightest of futures.”
Upon retirement, Gelo intends to devote his time to completing several research projects. A cultural anthropologist, he specializes in the symbolic study of American Indian expressive culture, and maintains an active field research program in Texas and Oklahoma. He is author or co-author of four academic books, including “Indians of the Great Plains” (Routledge), the standard college text on Plains Indians. In 2018 he was awarded the Presidio la Bahia Award for the best book on early Texas history for his latest book, “Comanches and Germans on the Texas Frontier; The Ethnology of Heinrich Berghaus,” which was co-authored by UTSA professor emeritus Christopher Wickham.
Gelo is a recipient of the President’s Distinguished Achievement Award for Creative Activity and the Chancellor’s Council Outstanding Teaching Award.
