Harnwell College House Dean Leslie Delauter will help lead Penn's college house system starting this summer, University officials announced yesterday.
Delauter will become administrative director of the system, joining Stouffer College House Faculty Master Philip Nichols, who was appointed faculty director of the system in January.
Delauter and Nichols will take over for David Brownlee, who has led the system since its inception in 1998 and will step down next month. Following Brownlee's decision to leave his post as director of College Houses and Academic Services, the position was effectively split into two, and now, Delauter and Nichols will share the job.
Delauter said the decision to apply for the new post was a natural one.
"I had been looking at other positions generally because I've been here for four years and I... was ready for some new challenges," she said. She added that it "seemed like a good way to apply the skills I've already gained."
As administrative director, Delauter's tasks will include coordinating college house functions like residential computing and staff recruitment. She will also act as a liaison to other University bodies with which CHAS works closely, such as the provost's office.
In addition, she will be responsible for "reaching out and supporting and directing the 11 college houses [with a] loose hand but a strongly supportive hand," according to Brownlee.
Delauter's goals for her new position include increasing the visibility of house staff, helping house deans to make good use of residential programs and encouraging graduate associates and residential advisors to expand their academic roles within their college houses.
Delauter also hopes to address the perception that the college houses do not foster sufficient community.
"When I started here you couldn't get people to go to your programs," she said. "Now when we have a concert we get 200 to 300 people.... I think there's a perception problem here."
Brownlee said Delauter is ideally suited for her new job, partly because of her wealth of experience working within the college house system.
"She has been a leader of the college house system for the last four years," Brownlee said. "As a house dean she has shared in the shaping and making of policy of the entire system."
He also praised some of Delauter's personal attributes, which he feels will serve her well in her new capacity.
"I have never met a person of such wide-ranging ability, someone who brings such an extraordinary combination of great intellect and warm humanity to everything she does," Brownlee said.
Delauter is also receiving accolades from her fellow house administrators, who seem happy with her appointment.
"Leslie is a very popular person and we all like her very much," Gregory College House Faculty Master Robert Lucid said. House staff members are "all very pleased," he said.
And Ware College House Dean Katherine Lowe said Delauter's ability to work well on group projects will be an asset.
"We're absolutely thrilled," Lowe said. "Leslie is such a wonderful person to work with and the college house system is so much built on an ability to collaborate that I couldn't think of anybody better."
Delauter, 42, received her B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. in 19th century American literature from the University of California-Berkeley. She has been at Penn since 1994, first working as a curator in Van Pelt Library.
