Indiana University

Skip to:

  1. Search
  2. Breadcrumb Navigation
  3. Content
  4. Browse by Topic
  5. Services & Resources
  6. Additional Resources
  7. Multimedia News

Media Contacts

Leora Baude
IUB School of Law
lbaude@indiana.edu
812-855-2426

Last modified: Tuesday, January 29, 2002

Law School Dean Aman to step down

Alfred C. Aman Jr., dean of the Indiana University School of Law Bloomington, has announced his decision to conclude his deanship at the end of the current academic year on June 30. Aman will have served as dean for 11 years.

Next year, Aman will be a Fellow with the Law and Public Affairs Program at Princeton University, completing a book on globalization and democracy. He plans to return to Bloomington the following year as a member of the law faculty where, in 1999, he was named Roscoe C. O'Byrne Professor of Law.

Under Dean Aman's leadership, the past decade has been a period of significant growth and development for the Law School, building on a distinctive tradition of interdisciplinary studies and partnerships with other units of the Bloomington campus and Indiana University, as well as with other universities around the world.

The Law School also has developed a global legal studies program that has increased the number of international students at the school, as well as the number of countries represented among the graduate student body. The Law School has initiated a doctorate in law and graduated its first doctorates, and has reinvigorated its Ph.D. program in law and social science. Existing joint degree programs with the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA) and the Kelley School of Business have been greatly enhanced, and new joint degree programs have been started between the Law School and the School of Journalism and the Department of Telecommunications. The Law School has also initiated a new minor in accounting and business.

New partnerships with universities outside the United States have yielded innovative programs for students as well as faculty, creating new opportunities for education and research abroad, to date, in England, France, Germany, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Spain and Thailand.

The School of Law has also deepened its partnership with the Bloomington community through the creation of a new clinical program, establishing a Child Advocacy Clinic as a significant addition to its ongoing clinical programs in family law, domestic violence and prisoners' rights. In these programs, as well as through new upperclass courses reduced in size to provide for a more intensive educational experience, students have increased opportunities for hands-on learning and writing.

The intellectual and material resources available to students, teachers and scholars have been significantly strengthened over the past decade. The Law School has tripled the amount of scholarship funds available to students, raising the standard for admission while maintaining its longstanding commitment to a diverse student body.

The Law School has benefited from the appointment of new faculty, including senior faculty from Cambridge University, the University of Cincinnati, Cleveland State University, Cornell University and Widener University, as well as a number of new appointments at the entry level. Reflecting and supporting the Law School's interdisciplinary commitment, three new members of the faculty hold Ph.D. degrees in political science and economics.

Recent gifts to the Law School have expanded the number of endowed professorships and chairs from two in 1991 to 14 today. In the past 10 years, the intellectual life of the Law School has been further enhanced with the establishment of four new endowed lectureships: the Jerome Hall Lectureship, the George P. Smith Lectureship and Chair, the Earl Snyder Lectureship in International Law, and the Ralph Fuchs Lectureship and Professorship in Professional Responsibility.

The Law School has a longstanding and close involvement with the bench and bar of Indiana, participating in the state bar's continuing legal education projects with offerings at the Law School and in Indianapolis, as well as hosting the judiciary for oral arguments. During the past decade, the Supreme Court of Indiana, the Indiana Court of Appeals, and the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals have heard cases in Bloomington at the Law School, bringing important public institutions into the heart of the community.

Working closely with alumni around the state and nation, the Law School successfully conducted its first capital campaign. When the campaign closed last year, it had raised over $20 million, surpassing its initial goal by over $5 million.

A native of Rochester, N.Y., Aman is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Rochester with a bachelor of arts degree in political science in 1967. He earned his J.D. degree in 1970 from the University of Chicago Law School, where he served as executive editor of the Law Review. Following his graduation, he clerked for the late Elbert Parr Tuttle, senior judge of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, in Atlanta. Aman joined the law firm of Sutherland, Asbill and Brennan (of Atlanta and Washington, D.C.) in 1972. In 1977, he joined the faculty of the Cornell Law School, where he taught until 1991, when he began his deanship at IU.

Aman has continued to teach throughout his deanship, and he has held appointments as Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Comparative Constitutional Law at the University of Trento, Italy; Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Paris; and Visiting Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge, England.

A specialist in constitutional and administrative law, Aman has published a monograph on globalization (Administrative Law in a Global Era, Cornell University Press), a treatise and casebooks on administrative law, and numerous articles and essays.