The Triangle

Issue date: 2/20/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Sarah Greenblatt

Jennifer Rosato, dean of Student Affairs of the Earle Mack School of Law, has accepted deanship at the Northern Illinois University College of Law and will leave Drexel June 30.

At Drexel, Rosato served as acting dean of the College of Law from July 2006 to April 2007.

"As acting dean, Jennifer channeled the energies and diverse ideas of the inaugural faculty into a unified vision for a school that aspired to redraw the map of legal education," Roger Dennis, dean of the school of Law, said in a press release.

Rosato said the time spent as acting dean at Drexel gave her the kind of sought-after experience that Northern Illinois University valued.

Those experiences include recruiting an excellent class of students, creating a curriculum and working on innovative and experiential education and engaging in creative problem solving among other things, according to Rosato.

"We worked very hard on admissions, particularly with a new law school in a competitive environment, so I'll be helping NIU improve the excellence of their student body," Rosato said. "Creative problem solving, working with the university, working with colleagues, engaging the community, I'll be bringing all those to the table as new dean."

According to NIU Provost Raymond Alden, Rosato will bring experience and leadership skills to NIU.

"The insights she gleaned in helping to open the doors at Drexel, combined with her outstanding record of scholarship and leadership in nearly two decades as a legal educator, make her a wonderful candidate to assume the mantle of leadership at NIU Law," Alden said in a release from NIU.

According to the release, John Peters, president of NIU, will recommend Rosato to the school's Board of Trustees later this spring.

"I have to be appointed as dean as well as a professor, and that goes through the Board of Trustees as a matter of their process," Rosato said.

Rosato, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, worked as associate dean for Student Affairs at Brooklyn Law School and has taught in law schools at Villanova University, New York University and the University of Pennsylvania.

"I'm going to miss Drexel very much." Rosato said. "This is a very hard personal decision. I have terrific colleagues and terrific students, and this university has provided me a unique experience."

The law school is currently in the process of selecting a new dean of Student Affairs.

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