Scholarship with Purpose: The View from a Mission-Driven School

Abstract

This essay explores the ways that a law school’s unique culture impacts the role of the Associate Dean for Scholarship. Written by the first person to hold this position at Vermont Law School (VLS), this essay focuses specifically on how the Associate Dean for Scholarship supports VLS’s commitment “to developing a generation of leaders who use the power of the law to make a difference in our communities and the world.” This vision of the role, as implemented at VLS, includes: providing support to all faculty, regardless of status; supporting faculty who speak to broad audiences; and embracing a broad definition of the role that includes writing and teaching support. At VLS, engaging in meaningful scholarship is a critical component of faculty work because it makes faculty better teachers, better citizens in the world, and illustrates, for students, how to use the law to impact the world in positive ways. At a time when there may be criticism of faculty time spent on scholarship and calls to remove the system of tenure, VLS embraces scholarship, broadly defined, as part of our critical role.

This paper was part of a symposium, Perspectives from an Associate Dean: Scholarship and School Visibility, 31 Touro L. Rev. 15-74 (2014).

Keywords: law schools, legal education, law school administration, faculty scholarship