Secretary of Board of Trustees: Organizer, educator, liaison

Kineret Jaffe, who has been Secretary of the Faculties for the past three years and who, as Director of the Centennial Office, helped lead the University's successful celebration of its centennial year, has been appointed Secretary of the Board of Trustees, effective July 1.

Jaffe will succeed Celia Homans, Secretary of the Board since 1993 and previously Director of Government Affairs, who is retiring. Before joining the University, Homans was on staff at the National Opinion Research Center for 31 years.

"Celia has done a wonderful job as Secretary of the Board. I am grateful to her for her counsel and assistance during the presidential transition and my first years as Chicago's president," said President Sonnenschein. "She has been an especially valued and wise colleague, and I shall miss her very much.

"Kineret Jaffe will be a most worthy successor to Celia," Sonnenschein said. "She has come to know the University exceptionally well as a student, a principal organizer of the Centennial and Secretary of the Faculties. Her deep appreciation for Chicago will serve her in good stead as she takes on this new position."

The role of Secretary of the Board of Trustees is multifaceted, including such administrative duties as organizing board meetings and recording the minutes of those meetings as well as the broader responsibility of acting as a liaison between the Trustees and the administration of the University. Jaffe said she looks forward to the challenges and opportunities of her new position.

"The Board of Trustees is responsible for the long-term financial health of the University. It is important for them to be familiar with and fully understand the goals of the University, whether they be ideas the faculty have for new academic programs or plans to build a new athletic center. Part of my role will be to inform and educate the Trustees about the goals and needs of the University," Jaffe said.

"The University is a very complex organization. It will be my job to help present a clear and comprehensive picture of this institution.

"This is not to say that this is something new -- every University President has worked with the board in this way, and I imagine that every Secretary of the Board has assisted the President in this process," Jaffe continued. "In today's political and financial climate, though, it is probably more important than ever that the Board of Trustees be familiar with the needs and challenges facing this university and all of higher education."

Jaffe was Director of the Centennial Office from 1987 until the end of the University's Centennial celebration in 1992, when she was appointed Secretary of the Faculties. She also has been a Lecturer in the Humanities Collegiate Division.

Jaffe received her B.S. in 1970 from the University of Pennsylvania and her A.M. in 1974 and her Ph.D. in 1982 from Chicago. Before joining the staff of the University, she was an archivist and then assistant to the director at Dumbarton Oaks, the Harvard-affiliated museum and research center in Washington, D.C., from 1983 to 1987.