Meet a Colleague: Lauren Kozak Lauren Kozak serves as Title IX coordinator and director of disability resources.

W&L News Office
September 9, 2026

Q. How long have you worked at W&L?
I have worked at W&L for 16 years.

Q. What is the favorite aspect of your job at W&L?
I get to work with amazing people and do work that I feel is important.

Q. If you chose a different path, what other career would you have?
I briefly used to be an attorney, so I guess that?

Q. Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Clovis, California, which is an agricultural community in the Central Valley near the Sierra Nevada foothills.

Q. What was your favorite subject in school?
History and English.

Q. What three words describe you best?
Loyal, even-keeled and impatient.

Q. Name one person from history you would like to spend a day with and why.
It would be interesting to have John Muir serve as a guide around the mountains in California. Although in actuality, I would be so nervous about spending the entire day with a famous historical figure I may not enjoy it much.

Q. What is your biggest pet peeve?
I can get annoyed when people take a really long time to make a move in a board game.

Q. What do you like to do away from work?
I like to ride horses and spend time with friends and family: my husband and three kids, ages 13, 11 and eight. I don’t have my own horse, but due to the generosity of a friend I get to ride some wonderful horses. I am always up for a card or board game as well.

Q. What is your least favorite chore at home?
Weeding. You could guess this answer by passing by my house right now.

Q. What is your favorite family holiday tradition?
Getting together with family. I also love the tradition of having a Friendsgiving before Thanksgiving.

Q. What do you pretend to hate but secretly love?
Someone else said this, but it made me realize that it is so true — deadlines!

Q. What is your all-time favorite food or food dish?
Probably tacos since I could eat those every day and not get sick of them. But I also really love sushi and matchstick french fries.

Q. Where would you choose to build your dream home?
Here! I feel so grateful to get to live here. Although, if we are in a fantasy where a second home is possible, I would love to have a vacation home in Mammoth Lakes, California for skiing in the winter and hiking in the summer.

Q. What is your all-time favorite book?
Impossible to choose an all-time favorite, however, I find that I have probably thought about “Les Miserables” the most over the years.

Q. If you could choose one series to binge-watch, what would it be?
“Gilmore Girls.”

Q. What is your all-time favorite movie?
Hard to say my all-time favorite, but my favorite comfort movie that I have seen the most times is “Sense and Sensibility”(1995 version). I saw they are doking a remake and it is going to be hard to top the perfection of Emma Thompson’s adaptation.

Q. Tell us something most people don’t know about you.
I have attended several costume balls where we dance Old English County Dances (i.e., the dances you often see in Jane Austin movies).