Deputy Secretary, Ambassador, Mentor

After deciding not to run for re-election in 1990, Kunin joined Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign, serving on the vice-presidential search committee and then as co-director of his transition team. From 1993-1996, she served as Deputy Secretary of Education, and then was appointed Ambassador to Switzerland and Lichtenstein, returning the country of her birth a half-century later.

Upon returning to public life, Kunin continued to work for the causes she had championed as a politician. She founded and served on the board for the Institute for Sustainable Communities, and served as the first Rockefeller Distinguished Fellow at Dartmouth College. She lent her voice to environmental causes and wrote and lectured on the role of women as advocates, community builders, and politicians.

Through the early 2000s, Kunin held a series of teaching appointments at St. Michael’s College, Middlebury College, and the University of Vermont. She also published several books, including memoirs like Living a Political Life and Pearls, Politics, and Power: How Women Can Win and Lead. In 2013 she founded Emerge Vermont, which recruits and trains women to lead in politics, and continues to be active as a mentor and political thinker in Vermont.

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