Wednesday, November 30, 2022

Penn State will work to re-merge its law schools

 

https://www.highereddive.com/news/penn-state-recombines-law-schools/637673/


Penn State will work to remerge its law schools 

Published Nov. 30, 2022 

Laura Spitalniak 

Staff Reporter 


Brief: Pennsylvania State University aims to recombine its separately accredited law schools into one program, reversing a merger it carried out eight years ago in an effort to save resources. 

The unified law school, comprised of Penn State Law and Penn State Dickinson Law, will keep the Dickinson Law name, use its campus in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and be led by its current dean, Danielle Conway. 

Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi, who has led the institution since May, recommended the move. She’s asking a newly created panel to study unification plans. The university doesn’t expect to make any staffing changes until after that panel makes final recommendations this spring. 

Dive Insight: Penn State’s latest plans for its law schools demonstrate that university mergers and acquisitions can be the start, not the end, of decades of changes — an important point as heightened competition for students draws interest in M&A across higher ed. 

The Pennsylvania flagship first voted to acquire the Dickinson School of Law in 1997, when the law school was an independent institution operating in Carlisle. That town is about 90 miles away from Penn State’s main campus in State College, but it is much closer to the state capital of Harrisburg. 

Penn State opened a parallel law campus in State College and operated the institution as a single law school with two campuses from 2006 to 2014. Then in 2014, the American Bar Association approved a proposal from Penn State to split its law school into two programs — Penn State Law on the university’s main campus and Penn State Dickinson Law in Carlisle. 

Now, just eight years later, the university is seeking to end that arrangement. 

Merging the two schools would allow the university to concentrate its resources and remain competitive, according to an announcement from Penn State. 

“Penn State Dickinson Law and Penn State Law have been centrally funded since the inception of their separate accreditation. With these recommended changes, there would be significant savings over time, which can be reallocated into other academic units,” it said. 

Dickinson Law’s dean, Conway, will chair the panel weighing merger plans. It will announce merger recommendations at the end of the academic year and present the plan to the university’s board of trustees. 

The recommendations panel will include students, employees and alumni from both of Penn State’s law schools. It will seek input from the university’s faculty senate. 

The university has called off a hiring search for a new law school dean on Penn State’s main campus, given the position is unlikely to exist in the future. Victor Romero, a professor there, will take over as interim dean on Jan. 1. 

Both law schools will continue to teach current students, as well as those starting in fall 2023. 

Penn State will also explore new locations for its school of international affairs, which shares a location with Penn State Law. A search for an international affairs director is ongoing

Thursday, September 27, 2018

Scranton branch of DSL

I finally found a little more info about the branch of DSL that operated in Scranton.  Apparently it lasted only "one term," which I take to be one academic year.  This snippet is part of an article in the Scranton Tribune on January 21, 1896.


Thursday, September 21, 2017

Ma Kellett joins the DSL faculty

This is from the "Gettysburg Times" newspaper, dated August  10, 1976, one year before I started at DSL.   It's been sitting in my Amazon Drive for a long, long time, and it appears I never posted it.

I had "Ma" Kellett, as we called her, for Civil Procedure and Constitutional Law my Junior year at DSL.  I'm sure she's retired by now.  I think we were more afraid of her than any of the other first year faculty, including "Machine Gun Joe" Kelley.


Friday, November 04, 2016

They finally do right by Dean Gildin

Interim Dean Gary Gildin (who I had for Professional Responsibility my senior year at DSL when he was a baby law professor) has been named Dean.  Finally.  What the heck took so long?

http://cumberlink.com/news/local/communities/carlisle/gildin-named-dean-of-dickinson-law/article_58d8342b-1bc9-5e29-b622-92258450e676.html

He looks just like I remember, but older.




Congratulations!

Monday, March 09, 2015

Former Dean William L. Wilks Passed Away in February

I'm sorry to report that former Dean William L. Wilks passed away in Houston on February 24, 2015.
Obituary

I hadn't seen Dean Wilks since he left Dickinson (in the 80s I think), but I did keep in touch with him over the years.

I received an email from Dean Wilks on February 23 in which he told me he planned to teach until his last two daughters were finished college, in about two years.  I had told him Dee and I would both turn 60 this year and he said we were still "children" to him.    Everything seemed quite normal so I was shocked to learn that he died the next day.


Here's a picture of a polaroid picture I took of Assistant Dean Feldman and Dean Wilks, probably in 1980.

Saturday, September 20, 2014

DSL once had a branch in Scranton!

From an 1895 Scranton newspaper.


Now I have to figured out when it closed.

Update:  Haven't found anything about when it closed.  It opened in 1895 and "disbanded" sometime before 1900 when the article below was published.


Judge Sadler of "Sadler Curtilege" I presume

Harrisburg Telegraph, October 29, 1915

Time for some history

I'm going to expand this blog beyond just chronicling the travesty of DSL joining Penn State.  I'm not saying there'll be a lot to post, but I'd like to just post about DSL.

So here's a nice little announcement from 1918 when DSL decided to build Trickett Hall.