May 09, 2006

MEMORANDUM 06-13

TO: Deans of Member and Fee-Paid Schools
FROM: Elizabeth Hayes Patterson, Deputy Director
SUBJECT: Women Deans' Databank and Minority Deans' Databanks

Diversity within the law school community is and has been a core value of the AALS and the administration and maintenance of the Women and Minority Deans' Databanks is one of the means that the Association has employed to facilitate the realization of this goal.

The Women and Minority Deans' Databanks comprise women and minority law school educators who have expressed an interest in being considered for positions of deanship directly through self-nomination or have been nominated by deans or senior faculty at institutions of law. The lists of nominated candidates are then made available upon request to dean search committees that are interested in having a diverse pool of candidates.

The Association is now in its fifth year of administering the Women Deans' Databank which had previously been maintained by the Georgetown University Law Center and is in its fourth year of maintaining the Minority Deans' Databank which it instituted in 2002. Within that period of time, the Association has made annual solicitations for the names of senior women and minority faculty members who possess the qualifications to be considered for positions of deanship. We have contacted nominated individuals requesting authorization to include their name in our database and released the names of potential candidates to dean search committees upon request. More recently, the Association set up an Advisory Board, made up of current women and minority deans and an Advisory Council made up of past women and minority deans, to monitor the progress of the databanks. Additionally, to raise awareness of the existence of this database and to promote increased participation in this effort, an article was published in the April issue of the AALS quarterly Newsletter.

Enclosure

The Association would like to request that you provide the names of women and minority faculty members and administrators that you think should be included on one or both of these lists. Once we have received your nominations we will proceed to obtain the permission of the nominees to allow their names to be placed on lists that will be made available to dean search committees.

You may send your list of nominees to the AALS Deputy Director, at epatterson@aals.org . We also encourage you to use this service, whenever a dean search committee is formed.

The Association would like to thank you in advance for your participation in this important initiative to enhance the opportunities of women and minority dean candidates.

EHP: kaa

Enclosure

CC: Carl C. Monk

Executive Committee