Californian gets nod to be UALR law school dean
Would welcome a return to South, Crawford wrote
The University of Arkansas at Little Rock has named Colin Crawford, dean and professor of law at Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco, as the next dean of the William H. Bowen School of Law.
UALR announced the selection of Crawford on Tuesday. He is scheduled to start his duties July 1. The other finalist for the role was Christian Johnson, Commonwealth Professor of Law and Business Advising, and director of the Business Advising Program at Widener University Commonwealth Law School in Harrisburg, Pa.
Both men visited campus in early March to meet with the search committee and members of the law school, as well as offering a presentation to the campus community. Crawford will succeed Theresa Beiner, who announced last year she will resign as dean this summer and return to a faculty position.
In a news release from UALR, Crawford called his new role “a great honor.”
UALR’s law school “has a tremendous, enterprising faculty and plays a central role in the life of [the] capital city and its region,” he added. “I’m excited to join an institution that is already very strong — and look forward to working with faculty, staff, students, alumni and other university and community constituents to make Bowen even stronger and to help raise its profile even further.”
Crawford, 64, previously served as dean of the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville, following tenured positions at Tulane University, Georgia State University — where he founded and co-directed the Center for the Comparative Study of Metropolitan Growth — and Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, according to Angie Faller, UALR news director. Crawford, who joined Golden Gate in June 2021, has a bachelor’s degree in history from Columbia University, a master’s degree in history from England’s University of Cambridge, and a law degree from Harvard Law School.
“His leadership experiences and his broad research interests made him an ideal candidate for this role,” Ann Bain, UALR provost and executive vice chancellor, said in the news release. “I look
forward to working with him closely to continue advancing the mission of the” law school.
Crawford wrote in his letter of application “that it would be a source of great satisfaction to return to the region of the country where I spent the better part of my professional career and which I came to love and understand.”
He added that he’s well aware of the “manifold pressures and urgent challenges facing legal education today,” so he “would hit the ground running.”
“Having worked at a diverse range of law schools, I am especially well-positioned to apply my knowledge of legal education and respond creatively to the changing market for legal education,” he wrote.
“As my record demonstrates, I am committed to the importance of delivering a high-quality education at a school dedicated to advancing the goal of an ever more diverse bar.”
“I enjoy advancement work, and I have a fundraising record,” he added. “I am skilled at and enjoy working with university collaborators outside law, with the upper administration, the local community, and state stakeholders.”
He has published books and articles in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, in which he is fluent, according to the Golden Gate University School of Law. He is a faculty associate at an interdisciplinary graduate program offered by four top universities in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and regularly teaches comparative environmental law and policy courses at both the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and at the University of the Andes, in Bogota, Colombia.
He also served as the Project Director for the Environmental Law Capacity-Building Initiative in Central America and the Caribbean, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to Faller. His scholarship focuses on environmental, property, urban development and land-use law questions, especially in a comparative and international context.
At UALR, Crawford will carry a ranking of Professor of Law, with tenure, contingent upon approval by Donald Bobbitt, president of the UA System, according to the offer letter extended by UALR. His annual salary will be $240,000.
Paula Casey, who chaired the search committee, has previously served as interim dean of Bowen law school — the first woman to hold the post — and she retired from the university in 2016. A professor emeritus at the law school, Casey was appointed to the U.S. attorney’s office in 1993 by then-President Bill Clinton, serving as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas from 1993-2000.
“I would like to thank the entire search committee for their hard work and service in helping us make this important hire for our campus and our community,” Bain said in the news release.
Johnson was the inaugural dean for Widener University Commonwealth Law School, serving five years, and prior to joining Widener, he served as the Hugh B. Brown Presidential Endowed Chair of the Law and the associate dean for academic affairs at the University of Utah College of Law, according to Faller. Johnson has 27 years of experience in legal education, and he was a law professor at Loyola University Chicago for 13 years.
Beiner, the first non-interim female dean at the UALR law school, will leave the dean’s job effective July 1, according to Faller. Beiner, 58, originally joined the Bowen School in 1994, and became dean in 2018, planning to serve for about five years.