May 04, 2004
Dean to Step Down Next Year
MEMORANDUM
TO: The Thomas Jefferson Community
FROM: Dean Ken Vandevelde
SUBJECT:My Plans
DATE: May 4, 2004 I have notified the Board of Trustees that next year will be my last year as the dean of Thomas Jefferson School of Law. Within the next couple of weeks, the board will be appointing a Dean's Search Committee to conduct a nationwide search for the second dean of Thomas Jefferson. My resignation will become effective upon the appointment of my successor, at which time I will return to the faculty. The reasons for my resignation are rooted in the circumstances that led to my assuming the role of dean in 1994. I had joined the faculty of what was then the San Diego campus of Western State University College of Law in 1991 intending to teach and write full-time and with no desire to be an administrator. At the end of my first year on the faculty, then-Dean Mary Lynne Perry asked me to serve as associate dean, a request that I refused twice before finally agreeing to it. Two years later, in April 1994, weeks before the end of my term as associate dean, Dean Perry informed me that she was resigning. Western State President Jack Monks named me acting dean, pending a search for a successor. I told President Monks that I did not wish to be considered for the permanent position and would return to the faculty after one year. Following my appointment as acting dean, I wrote a letter to the law school community saying that I would use my year as acting dean to promote two goals: to make the law school a more humane institution and to improve academic quality. In my mind, improving the academic quality of the law school required that we accomplish three more specific goals: that we separate from Western State University, obtain ABA approval and convert the law school to a nonprofit entity. I did not think that any of this could be done in a year, but I wanted to start us moving in that direction and set the course that I hoped the new dean would follow. By the end of my year as acting dean, however, the governing board of the university had agreed to allow the San Diego campus to separate from Western State and to seek ABA approval. The board asked me to serve as the founding dean of the new Thomas Jefferson School of Law and to spearhead the drive for ABA approval. Having persuaded the board to undertake this ambitious endeavor on the basis of my personal assurances that we would succeed, I felt that I had an obligation to see the project to completion. All of the goals I set in June 1994 have now been accomplished. We separated from Western State University on January 1, 1996, obtained provisional ABA approval on August 6, 1996, received full ABA on August 7, 2001, and converted to a nonprofit institution of higher education on September 27, 2001. As for the goal of a more humane institution, the Princeton Review of Law Schools two years in a row has ranked Thomas Jefferson fifth in the nation for the quality of life on campus, as measured by the degree of student-faculty interaction and the sense of community on campus. Accomplishing these goals entailed a revolution in the quality of our academic program that has involved the entire campus community and that has been deeply satisfying to watch.
The number of applications for admission to the fall entering class has increased more than tenfold, from some 300 in 1994 to approximately 4000 this year, meaning that we will have more than 20 applications for every seat in the class.
The size of the faculty has doubled and we have used our opportunity to expand the faculty to recruit an outstanding group of teachers and scholars. Half of our faculty have joined the law school since 2000.
The size of the library collection has quadrupled and very soon will reach a quarter of a million volumes and volume equivalents.
We have purchased the Courtyard Building, increasing our physical facility by fifty percent. Classrooms are wired for laptop use. And, we are now actively exploring the construction of a third building.
We have the first real moot courtroom in our history and our mock trial team has gone to the national finals of a major competition two years in a row, while our dispute resolution team has finished first or second in six competitions in a row.
The quality of our entering classes has soared, with our most recent entering class having an LSAT score at the 75th percentile, which places us above a third of all ABA approved law schools in the nation, despite the fact that we have had full ABA approval for less than three years.
The percentage of out-of-state students has almost septupled, from less than 10 percent in 1994 to well over 60 percent today. Among law schools, we have the second most nationally-based student body in the state of California, behind only Stanford.
The number of students of color in our entering class has increased and the attrition rate for students of color in recent years has been lower than that of the student body generally. We have also increased the racial and ethnic diversity of our faculty.
We are ranked second in the nation for the gender diversity of our faculty and were recently given the Friend of the Community Award by the Tom Homann Law Association because of our commitment to diversity based on sexual orientation.
The number of elective hours offered by the full-time faculty has tripled, creating a vastly richer curriculum.
We have also developed a truly cutting-edge curriculum, built around our new Center for Law, Technology and Communications, Center for Global Legal Studies and Center for Law and Social Justice.
Our highly successful Jefferson Lecture series has brought three visits by U.S. Supreme Court Justices to San Diego in three years, while our very strong annual Women and the Law Conference is in its fourth year.
Support for faculty research has increased immeasurably. We have inaugurated a faculty sabbatical program and a summer research support program.
The number of books written by our faculty is triple what it was 10 years ago, while the number of major law review articles is five times what it was a decade ago. Books written by our faculty are in use throughout the United States and in numerous foreign countries. This scholarly productivity contributes to the knowledge of the faculty while building the reputation of the law school.
Our bar results for the past three years have been the best in our history and, with our soaring admissions standards, future results will be better still.
We have one of the most sophisticated and elaborate Academic Support Programs in the nation, covering all three years of the academic program, with more than 200 students participating each year. In 1994, the program covered only the first year and was limited to about 25 students.
We routinely offer midterm exams in some 15 courses each semester, providing students with invaluable opportunities to receive individual assistance from faculty and improve their performance. In 1994, midterms were administered routinely in only Contracts I and Torts I.
The number of employers who interview through our Career Services Office has grown from approximately 5 in 1994 to more than 300. Our graduates have received offers from such nationally prominent law firms as Shearman & Sterling; Baker & McKenzie; Kaye Scholer; Arnold & Porter; Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft; and Foley & Lardner, and clerkships with the U.S. Court of Appeals, the U.S. District Court, and various state Supreme Courts.
Today, we have a law school that is immeasurably stronger academically and demonstrably more humane than it was in 1994. And the American legal community knows it. Our very recent, highly successful ABA inspection signals that our place in legal education is secure and that the revolution we sought to achieve is permanent. This inspection, as the standard three-year follow-up to the grant of full approval, was the last of the inspections linked to the accreditation application process. The journey we started down in 1994 has now finally come to an end. In another four weeks, I will have served as dean for 10 years, which is more than twice the average tenure of a law school dean. In fact, of the approximately 180 deans of ABA accredited law schools, fewer than 20 have served longer than I have. Of the 19 deans of ABA approved law schools in California, only two have served longer than I have. Having accomplished the goals that motivated me to accept the position of dean when it was unexpectedly offered to me, I wish very much to resume the teaching and scholarship that were my reasons for joining the faculty in 1991. So many professional aspirations have been deferred for a decade now. Two books that I planned to write have been written by others. It is time to return to my academic career. Leaving aside my personal desire to teach and write full-time, this is the perfect time for the law school to seek a new dean. Thomas Jefferson School of Law is stronger academically and institutionally than it has ever been. With soaring admissions applications, we face several years of expanding resources and the ability to launch exciting new programs while deepening the quality of existing ones. We are enjoying tremendous success in every aspect of our operation and we face no major problems. The role of the next dean will be to shepherd the school through an unprecedented period of accomplishment, a period when we will have the resources to do the things that were never possible before. It is going to be a great time to be the dean and we will never have a better opportunity to attract the strongest possible candidate. I am proud of what has been accomplished during the past ten years and deeply grateful to all of those on the faculty and staff, in the student body, and among our alumni, who made these accomplishments possible. I thank all of them now and I will thank them again publicly nearer the end of my tenure. The law school owns a couple of buildings and some books, furniture and equipment, but the faculty, staff, students and alumni are who make it what it is. We are extraordinarily blessed in who those people are and that is why I will be able to say, as I hand the reins to my successor, that we have done great things, but the best is yet to come.