The Northwestern School of Law appointed an interim dean late last week and also named the search committee responsible for finding a permanent replacement for departing Dean David Van Zandt.
The appointments come about six weeks after Van Zandt indicated his intention to resign.
The outgoing dean announced in late August that he would step down to become president of The New School in New York. Kim Yuracko, currently the associate dean for academic affairs and a law professor, will take over as full-time interim dean beginning Jan. 1. Prof. Dorothy Roberts will chair the 14-member search committee responsible for selecting Van Zandt’s successor, and the committee’s first meeting will take place Oct. 25.
“We are just starting the process of having outreach meetings with alumni and faculty and students and other community members to solicit their advice, counsel and ideas about the attributes we would like to see in the next dean,” Roberts said.
University Provost Daniel Linzer would like to have the new dean “at least identified by next fall 2011, if not installed as dean,” Roberts said.
Van Zandt’s successor has to fill shoes of the school’s second-longest serving dean. His 15-year tenure included the implementation of a “Strategic Plan” designed to improve graduates’ marketability and the creation of a three-year joint J.D./M.B.A. degree with the Kellogg School of Management. The School of Law – nationally ranked 14th in March 1996 – was most recently ranked 11th by U.S. News & World Report, a point of pride for a dean who penned an April essay on rankings’ importance.
“I strongly believe in them,” Van Zandt wrote. “Rankings offer prospective law students an important source of consumer information with which to evaluate law schools.”
In a news release announcing his departure, Linzer said Van Zandt has “led continual efforts to analyze the legal market to maximize our graduates’ success. The resulting initiatives for students, along with the faculty focus on discipline-based research that furthers understanding of law and legal institutions, have set the Law School apart.”
In an interview with The Daily earlier this month, University President Morton Schapiro praised Van Zandt’s “remarkably long reign.”
“It’s almost unheard of to stay for more than 10 years,” Schapiro said. “He had a great run.”
As chairwoman, Roberts said the search committee’s mission is clear.
“Under his leadership, the Law School has gained in prominence and distinction,” she said. “And we hope to continue that trajectory with the new dean.”
