Academic

For those of you who did not hear my whoop of delight Friday at AALS, let me take a moment to post on the new Dean of the University College of Law, Bruce P. Smith.  As a member of the dean search committee, I have been involved (perhaps a little too involved) for the past sixteen months or so in the most important decision that a law school is called on to make:  who will lead them, and by implication, in which direction.  As a faculty, we were confident in the direction that we wanted the school to go, and we are equally confident that Dean Smith is the person to take us there. 

We are a spoiled faculty, spoiled by having our previous dean, Heidi Hurd, be a top-notch scholar, administrator and fundraiser.  Filling those shoes will not be easy, and finding potential shoe-wearers was particularly tricky.  At times, I was reminded of Jane and Michael Banks, the cute kids at the beginning of Mary Poppins, who write an advertisement (you must pronounce this in the British way -- ad-VERT-iss-ment) for the "perfect nanny."  Only one person meets these qualifications, of course, and that person is Mary Poppins.  I am happy to say that we have found the one person to meet our exacting qualifications, and that is Bruce Smith.