Kathleen Cleary, former Chair of Dance & Theatre, officially started her first day as the Dean of Liberal Arts on Friday, Jan. 2.
“I’ve sat down in lots of meetings and we’ve already started doing some long range planning for the division, looking at the direction we want to go,” said Cleary. “I’ve been there mostly to support the department chairs in their work.”
Cleary was Chair of Dance & Theatre for five years before becoming Dean of Liberal Arts. Sally Struthers, who was the Dean of Liberal Arts, resigned from the position to go back to teaching and announced the position would be open. Cleary applied for the position and had to go through an extensive interview process.
Cleary said that she enjoys doing administrative work.
“I’ve been teaching for about 20 years and my role has become increasingly more administrative and I had found I’d really been enjoying it, so this was kind of a natural next step for me,” said Cleary.
Cleary plans on meeting with each of her department’s chairs one-on-one.
“I want to make sure I spend at least an hour with everybody getting an idea on what kinds of things they want to do,” Cleary said. “After doing that, I’ll bring together all the ideas I’ve gotten from them and start establishing ideas for the division.”
Cleary said that moving offices has been hectic but she has received flowers and candy and feels very welcomed. She does feel some pressure replacing Struthers.
“She’s going to be a tough act to follow because she was universally liked. She just did a fantastic job, so in that sense absolutely. What’s to my benefit though is that she’s still here and is making herself very available,” said Cleary.
Struthers has been recommending books, sharing notes, and giving her pointers on how to do the job Cleary said. Struthers is teaching Art History this quarter and feels that it is good thing that she is able to help Cleary with the transition.
“Sometimes a Dean will go away and then the new person is left [in the dark] and doesn’t know what’s going on, so I think it’s nice that I’m still here while Kathleen’s starting the job,” said Struthers.
Struthers said that winter quarter is the hardest quarter for deans due to the busy schedule with faculty issues, dealing with curriculum, promotion of tenure, among other duties. Struthers said she will be working closely with Cleary until March where she feels by then Cleary will be “into the swing of things.”
That aside, Struthers feels that Cleary is more than capable of being a good dean.
“I have all the confidence in the world for Kathleen,” said Struthers. “I think she’ll need to take her vitamins, but I think she’ll do a great job.”