I have great confidence the future holds
great things for the UND School of Law,
especially because our alumni and our
bench and bar love UND Law and are
committed to helping us succeed, together,
in overcoming the challenges we face. This
tremendous dedication was made evident
in the amazing efforts SBAND and its
membership made on our behalf during the
legislative session that recently concluded.
President Zack Pelham, Executive Director
Tony Weiler, members of the Board of
Governors such as Dan Traynor, Levi
Andrist, and many others were very active
and helpful not only through their own
actions in Bismarck, but also by contacting
their fellow members of the North Dakota
legal profession and calling on them to voice
their own enthusiastic support for additional
funding for the School of Law. Special
thanks are also owed to our new SBAND
President, Aubrey Fiebelkorn-Zuger, for all
of her efforts to support us throughout the
legislative session in so many ways.
Following these wonderful and generous
team efforts, and through the thoughtful
and committed public-spiritedness of our
legislators, the School of Law received an
enhancement to its base appropriation in
the higher education budget of almost $2.8
million for the new biennium. We are already
working to invest these enhanced resources
strategically to support our program of
legal education and our students’ success.
In addition, the legislature included a
$250,000 challenge grant for the School
of Law, that will be applied on a two-to-
one basis (i.e., one dollar in grant funding
for every two dollars raised via the UND
Alumni Association & Foundation). We
anticipate the top priorities for our private
fundraising now and in the year ahead will
be (1) clinical legal education, (2) energy
law faculty recruitment and retention, and
(3) merit-based student scholarships, to
enhance our ability to recruit and retain the
best law students and lay the groundwork for
consistency in enrollment for the long term.
will emphasize that “[t]he School of Law
has a very close relationship with our
state’s bench and bar, and has a special
interest in serving our state’s rural as well
as urban populations, “and that “[w]e desire
colleagues who view service to the law
school, the academy, and the legal profession
as integral to their own success.”
I am also very excited about our new
leadership team at the law school. With
the University’s support, we will have two
associate deans to provide the benefit of
their outstanding talents to their respective
roles. Brad Myers will serve as our Associate
Dean for Administration, with duties that
will include matters such as the extensive
behind-the-scenes work necessary to
prepare us for the upcoming every-seventh-
year ABA site visit in 2021, as well as
budget and financial issues. At the other
side of the leadership team, Julia Ernst will
serve as our Associate Dean for Academic
and Student Affairs, with duties that will
include the organization of our academic
program, course schedule, and support for
our adjunct faculty and our admissions and
recruitment efforts.
Finally, I would like to take a moment to
honor Professor Patti Alleva, a true legend
in law teaching, who retired from her
outstanding faculty career at UND Law this
year. She is my dear friend and a wonderful
colleague who played a pivotal role in my
decision to join the faculty here and has
been my preeminent mentor in teaching and
devotion to students as our first and foremost
mission. I am so grateful to her for all she has
done for me, and for all that she continues
to contribute through her magnificent legacy
we seek to carry on here at the UND School
of Law.
With the help of our many faithful allies, we
will continue to provide excellence in legal
education for the good of our students and
our state. I look forward to continuing our
conversations about how we can make UND
Law the very best it can be.
We have received approval from the UND
Provost to commence searches this fall for
three tenure-track faculty positions, with
start dates in Fall 2020. Our advertisement
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