There's now an official UM School of Law Dean Search page. Complete with a Position Description.
Here are some of the things the Dean will do:
- Strengthen institutional excellence and selectivity
- Enhance the recognition of the school’s quality and strengths
- Attract and retain promising scholars of the first rank.
- Continue to build and develop areas of strength in teaching and scholarship
- Strengthen excellence in both scholarship and classroom teaching
- Creatively support, enhance and promote faculty productivity
- Focus on ways to enhance the student experience at the Law School
- Fundraise, with a particular focus on relieving the financial burden on students and enhancing scholarship, teaching, and innovative programs
- Work with faculty and University leadership to finalize and implement the Law School’s Strategic Plan
- Maintain the excellence of the academic program in conjunction with the faculty, and provide leadership on innovative curriculum development, academic standards and program initiatives
- Offer students the diversity and richness of a large law school while providing a flexible, student-centered education with a commitment to excellence
- Encourage and support faculty scholarship, teaching excellence, and service
- Cultivate collegial and constructive relations with and among faculty
- Enhance diversity of the faculty, staff and student ranks
- Ensure that library and information resources continue to support the academic program and faculty scholarship, and explore new avenues for the fruitful deployment of technology in law studies
And that's not even the whole list.
And here are some additional “Desirable Characteristics”:
The Dean should be an accomplished scholar who is highly regarded by the legal academy. She or he should have enthusiasm for the Law School’s future and appreciation for its history; institutional and intellectual ambition, energy and judgment; leadership skills, including political sensitivity, an effective personal style, and the ability to foster collegiality and engagement.
The Dean helps set the overall tone for the school. The Dean will have:
- The ability to attract, retain and develop outstanding faculty, administrators and staff
- The ability to promote successful change in response to emerging challenges
- An appreciation for the assets of the Law School and the ability to build its future by their effective utilization
- The capacity to manage and develop a complex academic enterprise
- A global vision with the ability to be an advocate for continued growth and excellence in the academic program
- The ability to promote scholarly enthusiasm and productivity
- A commitment to a collegial model of governance and the ability to cultivate respect for and demands of faculty and staff roles
- The ability to nurture a strong sense of community among faculty, staff, students and alumni
- An appreciation for and commitment to encourage student service in the community and legal careers geared to public service
- A commitment to diversity that will reinforce the Law School’s historic position as a school of opportunity
- A commitment to fund-raising with the interpersonal and communication skills necessary to interact persuasively with the philanthropic community, to solicit and steward both governmental and private support from alumni, members of the Board of Trustees, friends, foundations, law firms and corporations
- Excellent communication skills
- A high level of energy which motivates others, inspires enthusiasm and reflects the forward momentum of the Law School
Walking on water is also optional.
What about “work to improve interactions with the wider university community so as to exploit shared strengths and promote synergies” as a desired goal? That would seem like a good one to me.
did bernard dobranski apply?
#1 Give students working restrooms that are bigger than a cardboard box and don’t back up every hour.
Making much more of our links to the wider University figures heavily in our strategic plan, so whether or not that is an explicit part of list, it is certainly incorporated by reference.
As I’m not on the committee, I am happily ignorant as to who has applied and who is getting on the ‘long list’.
My previous question was an attempt at snark. I met dobranski before pizza rotted his brain.
Who in their right mind wants to be Dean? Sounds like endless dental surgery to me.
And I caught the snark on Dobranski. HAH!
Are you or your wife applying?
My wife is on the search committee and thus ineligible. And I don’t want to be a Dean (other than the work I do now as director of Faculty Development, a post known in some law schools as ‘Dean for Faculty Research’ or some such).
It’s typical of Miami Law that there are no alumni on the committee, which is a shame since so many alumni have left the school over Lynch’s tenure with a horrible regard for the school and the faculty (ask the development office how long it takes on average for alumni to give to the school – and I’m not talking large donations – everyone I know tossed the $100 over 4 years request). Asking them to help find his replacement and set the school in a new direction would have been a very enticing proposal.
The President of the University forms the committee, not the law school, so you might address your concerns to her.
For what it’s worth, though, the Chair of the committee, Aileen M. Ugalde is a graduate of the law school.