bananeez wrote:Pufer -- Thanks for all your help here. Do you know anything about how the search for a new Dean is coming? And what kind of impact do you think a transition period will have on CU?
Last I heard, they're down to four or five candidates. Pretty quick, it'll be two or three, then it goes to a chancellor or viceroy or some other ridiculously-titled person on main campus to make the final decision.
Traditionally, the dean is an internal promotion from the faculty ranks (including Getches, who is just going to go back to being a regular prof). This has kept a fair bit of continuity between deans, and a pretty clearly-defined CU Law atmosphere. This degraded a little bit with the increased emphasis on rankings and stuff that has come in during the last few years, generally attributed to the rise of Associate Dean Matthew.
A Getches CU Law is unconcerned about rankings, isn't rocking the boat when it comes to traditions or faculty moves, and is oddly honest about all of its numbers compared to virtually every other law school. The next dean, brought in through a national search as he/she is going to be, may well align more with a rankings-concerned way of going about things, and may be chosen, given main campus's input into the process, based on their potential willingness to kowtow to the CU powers-that-be.
While I don't think a more rankings-focused dean will hurt us in any way, I am concerned about a dean who really cares what the newspapers think about us, or will bend over for main campus. I'll use ThACs as an example. For a while, CU Law was it's own entity. Separated from the rest of campus by the abandoned former law school building, we spent many a warm spring evening with a few kegs of free beer, sitting in the grass in the law building courtyard, watching the sunset over the flatirons with our law school compatriots (and various friendly dogs).
Concern over our noncompliance with campus alcohol policies we never complied with before put security guards at the gates, and erected numerous bureaucratic barriers to our continuing the ThAC tradition. Concern over what community members and alumni would say if they found out about it (alumni would be totally cool with it; it was a tradition, after all), reduced the number of ThAC days that were possible.
A move at the end of last semester threatened an enforced ban on all alcohol altogether in the law building. This from a law school that has booze at every speaker event, a beer fridge in the law review offices, and whose Dean keeps some wine kicking around just in case. Dean Getches has not been standing up for us particularly effectively in this, but neither has he fucked us. Really, the general apathy at the top has kept main campus off of our backs (in many more ways than relating to ThACs). The only concern I have with the transition is that we end up with some main-campus lackey who takes a more active role that fucks us.
All that said, the dean doesn't really do anything. The rest of the deans and Cindy Gibbons (every law student's hero) really run the show, and none of them are disappearing as far as I'm aware. As such, I don't really foresee all that big a change, except that we're fairly likely to start cooking the books a bit more when it comes to statistics sent to US News.
Also, Getches is still going to be here, so it's not like any institutional knowledge is being lost or anything.
thewarflamingo wrote:Anyone know the attire for asd? I'm hoping for casual so I can where jeans and be comfortable, but I assume it'll be business casual instead.
They'd probably like it if everyone wore business casual, but the folks giving the tours and talking to you at lunch of both sexes will be wearing t-shirts and comfy jeans, so you don't need to be any more dressed up than they are. They've already let you in; no need to be uncomfortable.
-Pufer
LeDique I've actually never ridden Copper but I'd have to guess that having any kind of event like that will crowd the area and limit ski/ride able terrain... I'll see if I can't get an answer out of my friends that do ski/ride Copper!
