(Refreshment Break Sponsored by iLaw.)
Law
schools regularly seek to brand themselves, innovate, improve their services,
enhance their reputation and gain a competitive advantage. From academic dean
efforts on curricular reform and other management decisions to research dean
efforts on developing a scholarly profile and marketing it, associate deans
have a special role and responsibility in shaping a unique identity for their
institutions. How is this accomplished? How does one work with the dean and
incentivize faculty to become part of that shaping process? How do you identify
or create your institution’s identity to which you then focus shaping efforts?
Is there such a thing as an institutional identity? What are the obstacles to
shaping a brand or identity for the law school from the associate deans’
portfolio of powers and responsibilities? Do efforts to be unique risk missed
opportunities to adopt practices that have been successful at other
institutions? Does the tendency to borrow best practices from other
institutions impair innovation and the ability to generate a unique identity?
How has the this task of identity development been affected at the mid-level
leadership level of associate deans and in what ways can associate deans
successfully contribute to their law schools’ responses to these challenges?
The section held a virtual business meeting in advance of the Annual Meeting.