Dean, Beasley School of Law
The Search
Temple University invites applications and nominations for the position of Dean of The Beasley School of Law. The Dean is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the President but reports on a day-to-day basis to the Provost. Serving on the Council of Deans, the Dean provides leadership in the academic, administrative, and external affairs of the School. Leading candidates should be proven and innovative leaders with successful experience engaging various constituencies in support of University and School goals and aspirations. The Dean will be charged with maintaining the Law School’s commitment to access and excellence; garnering resources to support academic endeavors; continuing to develop the Law School's curriculum which focuses on rigorous preparation for the practice of law and other legal careers; and supporting the faculty’s commitment to scholarship and classroom teaching excellence.
The University
Temple University – of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education – is a comprehensive public research university with more than 35,000 students. It has a distinguished faculty in 17 schools and colleges. Temple is one of Pennsylvania's three public research universities, along with the University of Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania State University. Temple’s talented faculty and its broad curriculum of 300 academic programs provide superior educational opportunities for academically talented and highly motivated students, without regard to their status or station in life. While the University especially serves students from Greater Philadelphia, it is enlivened by a rapidly increasing number of students from across Pennsylvania, throughout the nation, and around the world. Temple maintains an international presence with campuses in Tokyo and Rome and prestigious programs in London, Beijing, and six other locations worldwide. It has recently begun a $350 million capital campaign under the leadership of President Ann Weaver Hart.
Aspirations for a New Century
In July 2006, Dr. Ann Weaver Hart was appointed by the Board to lead Temple University as its president. Dr. Hart came to the University after serving as president of the University of New Hampshire and provost at Claremont Graduate School.
Dr. Hart quickly defined her aspirations: to enhance further Temple’s status as a public urban research university, offering access to educational opportunity and a commitment to excellence in teaching and the creation of knowledge. The focus on “access to excellence” builds on Temple’s traditions while reaching toward new directions. Temple will enhance existing centers of academic excellence and will advance targeted programs to national leadership. Research and creative endeavors will focus on providing benefit to society.
The Law School
The Temple University Beasley School of Law is committed to excellence in teaching, scholarship and service. The 64-member full-time faculty is dedicated to maintaining their commendable record of scholarship while preparing students to enter and continue in the legal profession with the highest level of skill possible, with a firm commitment to principles of professional responsibility, and with a sense of personal obligation to lead and to serve the communities in which they live and practice. The School seeks to maintain and strengthen its longstanding tradition of accessibility and diversity in order to pursue the goals of excellence in higher education and equal justice under the law.
The School offers an excellent professional skills training program. The Trial Advocacy Program is nationally known and ranked for its experienced teachers and innovative curricular development. Its trial team has won the national trial team regional competition for 16 consecutive years and the National championship three times. The Legal Writing Program is nationally-ranked and recognized for its cohort of devoted teachers, its intensive first-year program and its appellate advocacy training. Faculty members also have developed the Integrated Transactional Program, which was awarded the inaugural Problem Solving in the Law School Curriculum Award by the CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution.
In recent years, the School has nurtured two additional Centers of Excellence: International Law and Business Law. Both programs have been aided by the University and donors in the creation of new endowed chairs, currently filled by prominent national scholars recruited from outside the School. Temple's Institute for International Law and Public Policy helps to coordinate international and comparative law study at Temple, and numerous faculty members teach, write and practice across borders. The Law School has recently developed cross-curricular offerings with the University's Fox School of Business, supporting a J.D./M.B.A. degree program, and it has enhanced its connections with Business Law Sections of the American and Philadelphia Bar Associations.
In the past decade, the School has received about $100M in grants and contributions from foundations, graduates and friends. Its endowment has consequently grown from $4M to $57M. With this tremendous growth in its resource base, the School has created over 70 endowed student scholarship funds, endowed 13 faculty chairs and increased the faculty's size, and renovated its main classroom building and the Law Library. The School has also recently renovated two historic buildings, Shusterman Hall and Barrack Hall, a conference center and a new classroom building.
Temple law students are diverse and talented. They bring a wide range of interests and backgrounds to their study of law, arriving from more than 140 undergraduate schools and almost forty states and countries. They bring a rich array of academic, work and life experiences. Selected through a highly individualized admissions process from an applicant pool of nearly 5,000 applicants, the law school student body has grown increasingly competitive nationally.
The J.D. program serves students through both day and evening divisions. It provides students with a balanced and varied curriculum designed to meet the needs and interests of all students. The first-year program establishes a strong grounding in all aspects of legal analysis, research and writing. The upper-level curriculum provides students with rich and wide ranging opportunities to expand their intellectual and professional horizons and to explore in great depth areas of special interest to them. A substantial number of J.D. students take advantage of the many exciting opportunities available to study or participate in internships abroad.
Temple also offers five L.L.M. degree programs, all of which have grown in recent years. These programs are a fully integrated part of the law school, which benefits from the synergies between the varied programs and students. The Graduate Teaching Fellow Program provides training for careers in legal academia; the LL.M. in Trial Advocacy provides attorneys with the skills to try complex cases; the LL.M. and J.D./LL.M. in taxation provides specialized training in an extremely demanding and technical area of law; and the LL.M. and J.D./LL.M. in Transnational Law (Philadelphia and Tokyo) and the LL.M. for Graduates of Foreign Law Schools (Philadelphia, Tokyo and Beijing) address the need for lawyers who can practice globally.
The Deanship
The new Dean will be coming to Temple University at a time of significant opportunity, joining a leadership team with high aspirations and institutional purpose. The Dean is the chief administrative officer and chief academic officer of the Law School and a tenured member of the faculty. The Dean reports to the Provost, supported by a 49-member Board of Visitors composed of alumni and leaders from the legal and business worlds. Reporting to the Dean is a team of associate deans, assistant deans, program directors and senior administrative leaders.
Strong candidates will be leaders and scholars who will work collaboratively with faculty toward a common goal and vision for the Law School, taking it to a higher level of excellence and recognition. In addition, they will possess the following professional and personal attributes:
- Be respected by faculty, trustees, alumni, and in the legal community as a whole;
- Demonstrate a record of recruiting, supporting, and maintaining a diverse body of faculty and administrators;
- Drive the fundraising process, bringing focus and direction to alumni, community and national outreach efforts;
- Show personal commitment to educating a racially, culturally, and economically diverse student body.
PROCEDURE FOR CANDIDACY:
Please send confidential inquiries, nominations (including addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses) and applications (including a letter explaining relevant experience and a current C.V.) to our search consultants:
Korn/Ferry International c/o:
Stephen J. Trachtenberg
Senior Client Partner
Chairman, North American Education Practice
John F. Amer, Esq.
Client Partner, North American Education Practice
Kenneth L. Kring
Senior Client Partner
Managing Director, North American Education Practice
Attn: John F. Amer, Esq.
1900 Avenue of the Stars, Suite 2600
Los Angeles, California 90067
Email: john.amer@kornferry.com
All inquires and expressions of interest will be held in strict confidence.
The search will continue until an appointment is made.
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