Board Member donates $3 million
PHILADELPHIA—Paul K. Kelly, a member of the Board of Overseers of the School of Arts and Sciences and a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, and the Kelly Family Foundation have made a gift of $3 million to the University. The gift will be used to endow a professorship in the English department, to provide program support for Kelly Writers House and the undergraduate program in studio arts, and to create a challenge fund to provide scholarships and financial support for summer study and internships for students in the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business.
“This latest generous gift from Paul Kelly demonstrates his keen understanding of the value of the many areas that are critical to a Penn education,” said Penn President Judith Rodin. “We are enormously grateful to him for once again offering his support and leadership to further enhance a broad array of opportunities for our students.”
Mr. Kelly is the president and chief executive officer of Knox & Co., an investment banking firm specializing in mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructuring, and international financial advisory services. Considered an expert in foreign investment, he has been instrumental in introducing new financing concepts to the international capital markets. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and an M.B.A. in finance from Penn and serves as chair of the advisory board of the Huntsman Program. He is also the treasurer of the Board of Governors of the Penn Club of New York and previously served as the chairman of the University’s Agenda for Excellence Council. His other gifts to Penn include naming the Kelly Writers House and endowing the Paul K. Kelly Challenge Grant in 1998, which provides scholarship support for students in the College and the Huntsman Program.
“Paul is very committed to enhancing the many interdisciplinary
offerings, such as Kelly Writers House and the Huntsman Program,
that make Penn unique. We are grateful for his vision and
his generosity,” said Samuel H. Preston, Dean of the
School of Arts and Sciences.
The Kelly Family Professorship recognizes a faculty member with a demonstrated
track record of teaching excellence and a commitment to undergraduate education
and who has made significant contributions to creating a culture of writing
on campus. The first holder is Alan J. Filreis, professor of English and founder
and director of the Kelly Writers House. Professor Filreis came to Penn in
1985 after earning a bachelor’s degree from Colgate University and a
doctorate from the University of Virginia. His research and teaching focus
on modern and contemporary American poetry and the literary politics of the
American 1930s and 1950s. He has served as director of the Writing Program,
faculty master of Van Pelt College House, chair of the Residential Faculty
Council, chair of the English department’s undergraduate program, chairman
of the WXPN Policy Board, and faculty liaison to the Trustees Committee on
Student Life. He is a member of the Provost’s Council of Arts and Culture,
the Provost’s Committee on the Continuum of Education, and the College
of Arts and Sciences Admissions Committee. Widely recognized as a campus leader
in the intergration of computer technology into the curriculum, he has received
the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Award for Faculty Excellence, the Ira Abrams
Award for Distinguished Teaching, the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching,
and the Carnegie Foundation’s Pennsylvania Professor of the Year Award.
He has written five books, including Modernism from Right to Left: Wallace
Stevens, the Thirties, and Literary Radicalism, and is working on a sixth.
“ I am delighted that Al has been named the first Kelly Family Professor. I can’t think of a faculty member more worthy of this chair. No one can surpass Al’s enthusiasm, vision, and achievements for undergraduate education and for writing at Penn,” Mr. Kelly said.