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News

Law Center dean calls it quits

Rapoport leaving post as school's national ranking on the decline

Cougar News Staff 

UH Law Center Dean Nancy Rapoport resigned Monday. The resignation is effective May 31 and a replacement has not yet been named.

In a statement released Monday, Provost Donald Foss said the University has benefited from Rapoport's tenure as dean.

"We regret losing an administrator of Dean Rapoport's caliber," Provost Donald Foss said in a release. "During her tenure, she has led an impressive hiring program that added several excellent faculty members while significantly building both the Law Center's endowment and operating gifts. 

"She also displayed admirable leadership in the successful recover from Tropical Storm Allison, which flooded substantial portions of the center and left the O'Quinn Law Library under 12 feet of water," he said.

Rapoport's resignation comes after the Law Center slipped to 70th in U.S. News and World Report's 180 American Bar Association accredited law schools 2007 ranking.

"Students are more worried about what the rankings will do to their placement opportunities rather than the actual ranking itself," Rapoport said in an interview with Texas Lawyer on April 12.

Nearly 100 students filed into the Law Center's Heritage Room April 7 to voice concerns about the school's failure to maintain its ranking. 

But despite motions made by faculty to hear from students at the start of the faculty meeting, Rapoport followed the preset agenda, asking students to wait until the end of the meeting to speak about the ranking. 

Rapoport set up a Rankings Task Force made up of faculty, students and alumni to address the slipping rankings. 

"No one had a lot of fun at the meeting, and students were frustrated because they had to wait until the end of the agenda," Rapoport told Texas Lawyer. "I should have done a better job of explaining which forum was appropriate for hearing the discussion."

Rapoport became dean in 2000 after serving as dean at the University of Nebraska College of Law. She specializes in bankruptcy law and ethics and is the co-editor of Enron: Corporate Fiascos and Their Implications. She received her bachelor's degree from Rice University and then attended Stanford Law School.

Rapoport said she will return to UH as a professor after a year-long sabbatical. She has also been offered a named professorship and visiting positions at other law schools.

Foss said an interim dean will be chosen to assume Rapoport's duties until a permanent replacement is selected from a nation-wide search.
 

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