A man of many titles, Lee Kats has done it all — a professor of Biology, the Frank R. Seaver chair of Natural Science and the most recent addition, Dean of Seaver College.
In his over 30 years of being part of the Pepperdine community, Kats has left a lasting mark on students, faculty and staff across the university.
After his appointment as Dean of Seaver College on March 5, Kats said he felt a sense of disbelief that he could hold such an important role at such an amazing university.
“It was that mix of almost disbelief, that this farm kid from Indiana would be offered to be the dean at, in my opinion, one of the best faith-based liberal arts colleges in the country — frankly, there aren’t many better,” Kats said.
Katy Carr, associate provost in the Office of Research Grants and Foundation Relations, said she met Kats in 2006 when she came to Pepperdine as a receptionist in the Seaver Dean’s Office. In her nearly 20 years of working closely with him, Carr said Kats has been an incredibly important figure and mentor in both her professional and personal life.
“I don’t think I’m unique as someone who would describe him that way,” Carr said. “I think that he is a very generous person in that way, that I think probably comes from his faith, that he really cares about the people in his life and he’s very generous with guidance and his time and attention and helping.”
Midwestern Roots
Kats spent his childhood years on a farm in northern Indiana doing everything from hoeing weeds to driving tractors, he said. Along with his parents, he grew up with an older brother and sister, and his grandparents were immigrants from the Netherlands; therefore, his parents built the farm from the ground up.
Kats said his parents were part of a Protestant denomination, Christian Reformed, which is a common denomination among the Dutch. Kats and his siblings spent their childhood taking a bus every day to the Christian Reformed grade school and high school in suburban Chicago.
“I used to say I’d get up and get on the bus in the dark, and often in the winter, I’d get home from school in the dark because it was a long bus ride to this private, faith-based school in Illinois,” Kats said.
When it came time to enter the next stage of his life, college, Kats said his parents essentially told him he had no choice but to go to a Christian Reformed college. He applied to Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Mich., which during his time of attendance was Calvin College, and became a first-generation college student.
“My parents didn’t know anything about college, and so as I tell young people today, I only applied to one college because I didn’t know you were supposed to apply to more than one college,” Kats said.
One night, as he and his family were eating dinner together, Kats received a phone call from the Calvin College president’s son. Kats said the president’s son had been a strong student and called to ask if Kats had any questions about Calvin or college in general. Kats said he particularly appreciated this, as he did not have anyone to ask what college was like or to seek advice from.
Though he did not always have a major support system while in college, Kats said he advises students to take advantage of the vast support systems available at universities like Pepperdine.
“It was really kind of a sink or swim mentality back then, and that is just not our mentality at Seaver College at all,” Kats said. “If somebody commits to Seaver College, we also feel like we’re committing to them.”
As he went through his undergraduate schooling, Kats had plans to become a veterinarian, as he said he thought that was the only way to make money in working with animals. Once he found out his best friend was transferring to Purdue University, Kats thought he would do the same, setting himself on the track for medical veterinary school. However, life, and his professor, had other plans.
At the end of a chemistry class he was taking his sophomore year, Kats found himself in a conversation with a professor about his summer plans to move to Indiana and transfer to Purdue. The professor’s response was “no,” which ultimately changed the course of Kats’ life forever, he said.
“He said, ‘No, you don’t have to go to Purdue just because you love animals. We’re gonna leave lab right now. We’re gonna walk out of this classroom, I’m gonna introduce you to the new animal biologist in the Biology Department and you are gonna become best friends — and you’re not leaving,'” Kats said.
Kats did not transfer, and spent his last two years at Calvin conducting research with “his new best friend.” He soon discovered his passion for teaching people about animals, and realized he should start applying to graduate programs to become a professor.
After graduating from Calvin, Kats went straight to a PhD program at the University of Kentucky. Throughout his time there, Kats said he often went back to his adviser at Calvin for support, as he went through an influx of new experiences — being at a non-faith-based school for the first time with a large amount of students and completing a PhD just three months after earning his Bachelor’s degree.
Becoming a Professor
At just 25 years old, Kats took on his first job as a professor at Greenville College in Illinois. He remembers some of his students being older than him at the time, but nothing stood in the way of his eagerness to teach others about animals and biology.
Kats soon realized Greenville was a rather small school and did not provide him with the resources he needed to create a meaningful mentor-mentee relationship like the one he had received at Calvin. After two years, he landed at a slightly larger faith-based university in Malibu.
“Pepperdine already had a long track record, particularly in the sciences, of getting students at Seaver College involved in the science research, and that was so attractive to me because that’s what I had experienced when I was a student,” Kats said.
Shortly after arriving in Malibu, Kats said he realized it was the perfect place for him — a place the farm kid from Indiana with a passion for science would have never dreamed of.
“There’s the Santa Monica Mountains and I was a farm kid from Indiana; I hadn’t been spending any time in the mountains, I hadn’t spent any time on the West Coast and there was this adventure to it,” Kats said. “And to be able to share that adventuring with my classes and with research students who would get to know me, I’m like, ‘Yeah, I think this is a good place for me.'”
Studying God’s Creation
Growing up in a faith-based family and school, Kats said there was a common emphasis on creation in his life — yet, it had never necessarily been a scientific emphasis.
Always seeing nature as God’s handiwork, Kats’ arrival at Calvin College was a pivotal moment in how he saw himself fit into this creation.
“I began seeing nature as something not only of God’s creation, but even more exciting, because I contribute new knowledge to God’s creation,” Kats said. “To me, that’s the ultimate privilege as a scientist, to discover something new about God’s creation.”
Kats’ reasoning for studying science resonates greatly with first lady Joline Gash‘s, who was in one of the first classes Kats ever taught at Pepperdine in the 1990s.
Expanding Roles
Kats emphasized the importance of being a problem solver in the field of science. Though this was something he was always seeking in his scientific studies and teaching, after a few years at Pepperdine, he began to seek solutions to problems across the University.
Kats began serving on faculty committees, and noticed Pepperdine was struggling to marry the ideas of teaching and researching for faculty. Kats said former Dean David Baird said he liked Kats’ philosophy about research and teaching, and appointed him as the first ever assistant dean for research at Seaver College. Kats said one of his main goals in supporting faculty doing research at Pepperdine was to get students involved in any way possible, and eventually became the associate dean for research.
Dana Dudley, an associate dean in the Seaver Dean’s office, was brought into the Seaver Dean’s office around the same time as Kats in the early 2000s. She said she has always admired Kats’ emphasis on the importance of research for both faculty and students, regardless of which administrative role he was in.
“I think he’s left a mark on Seaver College by the number of programs he has created that allow faculty to do research through internal grants and allow faculty to partner with students in research,” Dudley said.
From there, former provost Darryl Tippens appointed Kats as vice provost for research. In this role, Kats said he remembers taking on several things such as information technology and accreditation processes — it was at this point that he dropped the “for research” from his title, and became the vice provost, which he served as for the last 10 years.
Looking back on the more than 30 years he has been at Pepperdine, Kats said his favorite memories have been traveling abroad with students. He said he has taken over 10 groups of students to Costa Rica and over five groups to Argentina, all doing field courses to travel and see animals across the world.
“It’s not fun if I do it by myself or with just scientists — it’s fun and memorable because I get to do it with students,” Kats said.
Kats’ Newest Role
Kats served as the interim dean of Seaver College from fall 2023 until March 5, when President Jim Gash announced Kats’ appointment as dean of Seaver College. Throughout these various titles, Kats still teaches occasionally and has an active research laboratory.
Carr encourages students not to be intimidated by Kats’ new title of Dean, as she said he is one of the kindest, most down-to-earth people she knows.
“He’s such a fun person to know,” Carr said. “He’s such a funny person and has such a love for getting to know people and the community of Pepperdine and especially our students.”
Since his appointment into his new role, Kats said he has done a lot of reflection on his upbringing and where that has taken him today. Rewinding back to when he was just a farm kid in Indiana, Kats said he could have never imagined becoming the dean of a college.
“So I’m grateful, I’m thankful, I’m humbled; I carry with me that Midwest, Calvinist work ethic and it will continue as dean and I’ll try my very best and I’m gonna work hard at it and I think I have a vision for the college,” Kats said. “I’m honored to be able to serve in this role.”
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Contact Amanda Monahan via email: amanda.monahan@pepperdine.edu
