UW Law School Professor and Dean Emeritus Cliff Thompson has been named acting dean at Michigan State University College of Law. Thompson will be taking the place of MSU’s Dean Terence Blackburn, who is on leave serving as a legal reform specialist in Jordan.
The following press release of December 7, 2006, from the MSU news bureau gives further details:
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Cliff F. Thompson, J.D., dean emeritus of the University of Wisconsin Law School, has been appointed by the Michigan State University College of Law Board of Trustees to serve as acting dean of the MSU College of Law.
His recommendation for the position was approved during the law school board meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 6.
"Dean Thompson brings with him a wealth of experience in legal education. Most importantly, he has served as dean at the sort of high-quality Big Ten law school we are on the road to becoming. He will help guide us along that path," says Kevin W. Saunders, senior associate dean for the law college, who is serving as acting dean until Thompson assumes that role in late January.
Thompson has more than 10 years of teaching experience in contracts, property, jurisprudence, law and society, and third-world legal systems. He is a former dean for the University of Hawaii, the University of Idaho and the University of Wisconsin Law School. He is the author of numerous journal articles, papers and books.
Also a plus for MSU College of Law is Thompson’s significant international experience throughout his career, including at the University of Khartoum (Sudan), University of Zambia, and as dean of the School of Law at Haile Sellassie I University (Ethiopia), where he served as the final expatriate dean and oversaw the transition to local faculty. He served for several years as a legal education adviser to the government of Indonesia and still is a member of the African studies and Asian studies programs at the University of Wisconsin. He also is a consultant currently with Chinese University of Hong Kong regarding the start of its new law school.
Thompson earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard College, graduating magna cum laude; his master’s from Magdalen College, Oxford University; and his juris doctor from Harvard Law School.
MSU College of Law Dean Terence Blackburn is on leave currently serving as a legal reform specialist in Jordan for the American Bar Association Middle East Programs. In that role he will provide assistance to the Ministry of Higher Education, the Ministry of Justice and three law schools in Jordan with curricular reform projects.
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MSU College of Law was founded as the Detroit College of Law in 1891. To extend its commitment to educational excellence, the college affiliated with MSU in 1995 and moved to MSU’s East Lansing campus in 1997. The College strengthened its affiliation with Michigan State University in 2004, becoming more closely aligned academically. The association between the two schools has led to a comprehensive interdisciplinary legal education program at the law college. Today, the law college is one of only a few private law schools to be affiliated with a research university and one of the oldest continuously operating independent law colleges in the nation.
Submitted by on January 18, 2007
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