Kate Cleary

More About Kate

Right out of college, Kate's first indirect experience with higher education - working for a boutique textbook publisher in San Francisco - turned her off to publishing, but ignited her interest in the world of higher education. Having serendipitously entered the field of higher education marketing, she is now one of the most experienced senior consultants at Art & Science Group with more than 20 years of marketing and communications consulting experience.

Kate moved to Baltimore in the summer of 1987 from San Francisco, where she had recently helped oversee the media relations and public events for the 50th Anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge. In her new East Coast home, she began her career in higher education consulting at The Barton-Gillet Company, the firm that pioneered the development of marketing in the non-profit sector. There she assumed a major role in the creation of recruitment and development publications, annual reports, and other communications for long list of blue-chip institutions, including Columbia Law School, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the University of Michigan Medical Center.

In 1994 she joined the newly-established Art & Science Group as the first Managing Associate. Today, other than the founding partners, she remains the only charter member of the firm. During her time with the firm, Kate has gained an extraordinary depth and breadth of institutional consulting experience, playing a critical role in nearly all of the major services of the firm, from enrollment management and student recruitment to alumni studies and annual fund marketing and communications.

Kate brings spirited energy and creative insight to every client. She is also an outspoken advocate of her client's best interests. Now involved in the college search process with her older son, who wants to play college baseball, Kate has a new-found appreciation of the college admissions process and, what she calls, "the good, the bad, and the ugly" of campus visit and information programs. Kate also played a central role in the development of studentPOLL, a national research newsletter first launched by Art & Science in 1994 and now jointly published by Art & Science Group and the College Board.