Kelly Cleary was appointed to serve as the executive director for the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business, a position vacated by Inge Herman in October and which has been temporarily filled by Associate Director Marco Alves in Herman's absence. Cleary's appointment will be effective on May 1.
Students in the highly-selective Huntsman Program were informed Feb. 28 of Cleary's new position in an email from School of Arts and Sciences Huntsman Director Rudra Sil and Wharton Huntsman Director Robert Jensen.
"Professor Jensen and I are delighted to inform you that, after a thorough search, we are all set to bring in a new director for the Huntsman program," Sil wrote in an email to the Huntsman students. "In time, you will learn more about her impressive background and qualifications, and it will be clear why we are working with her. We can't tell you how excited we are about the future of the program with Kelly as the new program director!"
Cleary currently serves as the dean of Career and Professional Advising at Haverford College and will follow the term of longtime director of the program, who left Penn abruptly mid-October of last year, to many students' confusion.
Kelly Cleary
"Kelly Cleary was selected after a thorough review of many excellent, well-qualified candidates. We are truly fortunate to have her on board, and I am excitedly looking forward to working with her," Sil wrote in an emailed statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian.
Cleary is not new to Penn. Before working at Haverford, Cleary served as a senior associate director at Career Services at Penn from 2007 to 2013. Cleary also earned a doctorate from Penn's Graduate School of Education in 2014.
“I am sure the new Director is enthusiastic about the program and the students and she knows the Penn culture well,” administrative staff for the Huntsman Program Flora Cornfield wrote in an emailed statement to the DP.
The DP reached out to various Huntsman students, all of whom declined to comment until the announcement was formally made by the University. The University has yet to make an official announcement.
The Huntsman Program, a joint program in international studies and business, which grants students degrees both from the College and Wharton, was first established in 1994 to “prepare its students to become leaders in today’s increasingly interconnected world.” Herman had been the program's executive director since 2003, guiding the program for over a decade until October of last year when she retired abruptly — which left some students feeling like they were “being kept in the dark.”
Political Science professor Rudra Sil is the current director of the Huntsman Program.
Prior to joining Career Services at Penn, Cleary also served as director of Career Services at Stetson University, career counselor at the University of Iowa, and assistant director of George Washington University’s Athletic Academic Support. She has also worked as a trainer for the United States State Department's Irish Peace Process Cultural and Training Program in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Cleary is the first to serve in her current position at Haverford since 2013. There, she has worked to implement a "departmental redesign that calls for greater integration of career planning with core academic advising."
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