Daniel L. Pals|Faculty Highlights | College of Arts and Sciences

Decades of Impact

Daniel L. Pals has played an important role in many areas of the College of Arts & Sciences.

By David Menconi

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Daniel L. Pals’ career as a professor and administrator is this: He has been personally involved in more aspects of the College of Arts & Sciences than almost any other member of the faculty in its 100-year history.

After earning his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in the history of Western religious thought, Pals came to the College in the 1980s. It was a time of transition for Pals’ department—the Department of Religious Studies—and the University of Miami as a whole. Pals started out pursuing his research and teaching classes, then soon added the responsibilities of department chair, which would not be his last promotion. 

“Early on in my career, by accident, I chaired this small department, which has built up to a department of 10 regular faculty with a good national reputation,” said Pals. “Now, we study Asian religions, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and we just hired an expert on Caribbean Vodou. It really has a global focus.”

During the College’s rapid growth through the 1990s, Pals served as interim department chair for everything from theatre arts to international studies. He was also appointed for multiple terms as a senior associate dean at the College. Over the past four decades, Pals has spent 13 years in the College’s central administration, including serving as interim dean in the early 2000s during an important period for both the College and the University.

Pals said he has enjoyed learning about other academic fields through his administrative roles and terms as interim chair for various departments. “I’ve liked broadening beyond my discipline,” he said. 

Pals’ current posts include serving as the director of the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program and as interim chair of the Department of Religious Studies. 

As a scholar in the area of religious studies, Pals has published acclaimed books, most recently Ten Theories of Religion (Oxford University Press, 2021). His areas of interest include modern European and American intellectual and  religious history, the history of the encounter between science and religion, and the nature of explanation in religion and the humanities more generally.

Throughout his career, Pals has seen the College’s robust growth in both numbers and prestige, and he has played an important role in that evolution.

“The College has changed with the University, in good ways,” he said. “We’re still a young institution at 100, and we’ve made tremendous progress in the humanities and other disciplines at the College. In the ’60s, it was a modest regional school. The faculty had good teachers doing serious work, but not with national reputations. Not in the least to disparage what it was before, but we’ve raised the academic profile by a considerable measure, and we’ve built it without a huge endowment. We’ve had 100 years to be proud of—a good success story.”