Nursing Dean Afaf Meleis has a history of never taking no for an answer.
Meleis began her career after finishing high school in the Middle East when she was just 15. She was one of the top candidates to enter Alexandria University in Egypt, but because the minimum age of acceptance was 16, she was told that she was too young to attend.
Instead of giving up, Meleis decided to make her case with the Chancellor himself. Just a few days after their meeting, she received a phone call informing her that the Chancellor had swayed the dean's decision by calculating her age in Arabic instead of Christian months. Indeed, Maleis was 16 years old in the Arabian world.
Meleis took the experience to heart. She said the Chancellor "taught me a lesson of innovative leadership. He thought completely out of the box."
Ever since then, Meleis has incorporated that incident into all aspects of her life.
After finishing her bachelor's degree in nursing, Meleis travelled to the United States to study at the University of California, Los Angeles on the Rockefeller Scholarship.
Meleis came to Penn in January 2002 after 34 years spent working at the University of California, San Francisco. She said she was drawn to Penn because "this is a University that attracts the best and the brightest students."
Meleis said her favorite part about being Penn's Nursing dean is watching the students learn to "perceive themselves as empowered and capable of making a difference in the world."
But Meleis does more than just handle the school.
In her spare time, she loves to visit her two married sons and "the most wonderful daughters-in-law that I could have ever dreamed about." She also loves to exercise, read and travel.
"I love the theater here in Philadelphia," she said, adding that her favorite Broadway plays are Fiddler on the Roof and The Phantom of the Opera.
In addition, Meleis loves food from all over the world. She holds a fervent belief that "the reason we should have globalization is . to wear each other's clothes and to eat each other's food."
Her favorite dining experience in the city is a fusion restaurant called Melograno, which is situated on the corner of 22nd and Spruce streets.
The dean frequently hosts fireside chats at her house for Nursing students. She said that in this environment, she is "keeping [her] fingers on the pulse of what's going on in the school." She wants to give the students "the sense that there is no limit to what they can do."
