UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – President Neeli Bendapudi is recommending that Penn State reunite its two separately accredited law schools, Penn State Dickinson Law in Carlisle and Penn State Law at University Park, into a single law school. The united school would be called Penn State Dickinson Law, have its primary location in Carlisle, and be led by Penn State Dickinson Law Dean Danielle M. Conway.
Penn State has canceled the dean search for Penn State Law, as it would not have been appropriate to bring on a new permanent dean at this time given the recommendation to reunite the two law schools. Victor Romero, Penn State Law professor and Maureen B. Cavanaugh Distinguished Faculty Scholar, has been appointed as interim dean of Penn State Law, effective Jan. 1. Romero will replace Interim Dean and retired U.S. Navy Vice Adm. James W. Houck, who has served as interim dean since August 2021, and will return to the faculty at his request.
Reuniting the two schools allows the University to advance legal education at Penn State and offer law students a more robust law school experience. With an extremely competitive marketplace for legal education and nine law schools in Pennsylvania, the University’s current two-law-school model is not the best approach for achieving excellence in legal education. Ultimately, concentrating its resources on a single school would allow the University to build a stronger law school. Penn State Dickinson Law and Penn State Law have been centrally funded since the inception of their separate accreditation. With these recommended changes, there would be significant savings over time, which can be reallocated into other academic units.
To launch the recommended process to reunite, Bendapudi will convene and charge a panel to study and then recommend options consistent with the objectives of the unification. The panel also will seek input from the University Faculty Senate and the recommendation regarding the structure of the united law school will go before the Board of Trustees. The panel, which will include representation from the students, faculty, staff and alumni of Penn State Dickinson Law and Penn State Law, will be chaired by Conway, with Romero serving as the panel’s vice chair.
Penn State is committed to fully supporting all current students as well as students enrolling in the fall 2023 semester with legal education in Carlisle and University Park, including complete bar exam preparation and job placement support.
“Both Penn State Dickinson Law and Penn State Law have been successful in delivering their outstanding programs of legal education since their separate accreditation; however, it’s clear that bringing Penn State’s two law schools back together as one is the best way to serve law students and, I believe, the right path forward for legal education, including teaching, scholarship, service and community, at Penn State,” Bendapudi said. “I want our law students to know that we are fully committed to you. As we evolve, you will continue to receive an outstanding, fully accredited legal education, as well as professional development opportunities, at your current campus, through graduation. For our faculty and staff, we recognize your tremendous talent and dedication to this University, and we will work closely with you throughout this process.”
No changes in the current faculty and staff at Penn State Dickinson Law or Penn State Law would be made by the University administration until the panel makes its final recommendations at the end of the spring semester and after all final approvals have been attained.
In addition, the School of International Affairs (SIA), which is currently co-located with Penn State Law in University Park, will remain largely unchanged, however, the University will explore relocating SIA to a new home within the University. The search for a permanent director of SIA will continue, and timing and details will be shared with the school’s students, faculty and staff.
“The Board of Trustees is deeply committed to the mission and vision of Penn State. In keeping with our land-grant mission, we strongly believe in the transformative power of education and its impact throughout the commonwealth of Pennsylvania and beyond. This commitment includes ongoing discussions and careful analysis to define the proper scope and structure of our two law schools,” said Matthew Schuyler, chair of the Board of Trustees. “The board supports the consideration of reuniting our two law schools into one, as this outcome would likely enhance the University’s legal education offerings, while helping to achieve the broader goal of being effective stewards of our resources.”
Legal education at Penn State
The oldest law school in Pennsylvania, the Dickinson School of Law was founded in 1834 and merged with Penn State in 1997. In 2006, the Dickinson School of Law University Park campus opened, and the two campuses operated as a single, united, two-campus law school until their separation into two, separately accredited law schools — Penn State Dickinson Law in Carlisle and Penn State Law at University Park — beginning in 2014. The two schools admitted their first distinctly separate J.D. classes in fall 2015. There are currently nine accredited law schools in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
About Victor Romero
Romero joined the Dickinson School of Law faculty in 1995 and joined Penn State Law in 2000. His scholarship emphasizes the law's impact on marginalized groups and he is especially interested in borders and boundaries — both legal and cultural — and how they function.
Romero served as associate dean for Academic Affairs at Penn State Law from 2006 to 2008 and again from 2015 to 2019. A former advisory board member of Penn State's Africana Research Center, Romero previously served as president of both the South Central Pennsylvania Chapter of the ACLU and the NAACP of the Greater Carlisle Area. He has also served as a visiting professor of law at Howard University and Rutgers. Prior to joining academia, Romero worked in private practice and as a law clerk to a federal judge in Los Angeles.
He holds a bachelor of arts degree from Swarthmore College and a juris doctor degree from the University of Southern California.