South Bend-native Jan Cervelli will serve as the 12th president of Saint Mary’s College. She will begin her term on June 1 and will be formally installed as president at her inauguration in the fall.
The Board of Trustees chose Cervelli from a strong pool of candidates because of her sophisticated sense of building consensus, her strong commitment to shared governance, her experience in fundraising and building undergraduate and graduate programs, and her emphasis on sustainability. Her term will begin at a time when her keen aesthetic sensibility will influence potential outcomes from the College’s recently completed campus master plan.
President-elect Cervelli comes to Saint Mary’s from The University of Arizona where she serves as Dean of the College of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture and Professor of Landscape Architecture. She became the first woman Dean at Clemson University when she was selected as their Dean of the College of Architecture, Arts, and Humanities. She also served as Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies and Director of the Teaching and Learning Center at the University of Kentucky.
She grew up directly across the St. Joseph River from the Saint Mary's College and is the product of two local Catholic schools with strong Holy Cross influences— Holy Cross School and Saint Joseph High School. Her passion for landscape architecture took her to Purdue University for her undergraduate studies and the University of Guelph, Canada for her terminal degree.