Penn State Dickinson Law in Carlisle and Penn State Law at University Park may be reunited. The two schools operated as one law school with two campuses from 2005 until 2014. The president of Pennsylvania State University, Neeli Bendapudi, announced she will organize a panel to look into the reunification process.
“Both Penn State Dickinson Law and Penn State Law have been successful in delivering their outstanding programs of legal education since their separate accreditation,” Bendapudi said. “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.”
Penn State took over Carlisle-based Dickinson School of Law, a private school, in 2000. It planned to move the law school to State College but ran into opposition in 2005. It opened its State College campus in 2006 and operated the two campuses as one single entity until 2014.
But when law school applications dropped, the faculty voted to cease first year classes in Carlisle. However, the university had accepted a $25 million grant from the Cumberland County Redevelopment Authority to upgrade the Carlisle campus, but with the caveat that first-, second- and third-year programs would remain in the state capitol.
Unable to cease admitting new students in Carlisle, the university chose to separate the two schools — allowing them to have different admissions strategies and missions. Some thought Penn State at University Park would attract higher-quality students from across the nation, while the Carlisle location would cater more to local students, presumably with lower entering credentials.
But it has not turned out that way. Both schools have similar entering credentials and missions.
The reunited school would be named Penn State Dickinson Law, with a primary location in Carlisle.
“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,” Bendapudi stated a news release.
The school has called off its search for a new dean of Penn State Law, due to the recommendation. The newly united school would be led by Danielle M. Conway.
Conway took over as dean of Dickinson Law in 2019 and in 2020 helped found the Law Deans Antiracist Clearinghouse Project, which won her an award from the Association of American Law Schools. Then last year she started the school’s Antiracist Development Institute.
Conway graduated from Howard University School of Law in 1992 and was a professor at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, William S. Richardson School of Law for 14 years. She was dean at the University of Maine School of Law for four years before joining Penn State Dickinson Law.
It is unknown how the reunification process will work, but President Bendapudi will be forming a panel that will research and create recommendations for the process of unifying the schools. The panel will make its final recommendations at the end of the university’s spring semester and after all final approvals have been attained.
Comments (1)
President’s Bendapudi has a great idea. The one campus in Carlisle gives students important access to Harrisburg and Washington D. C. . One must give Penn State points for admitting a decision to have two campuses was wrong. Credit to the Borough of Carlisle, Past alumna of Dickinson School of Law “Carlisle”, and supporters of the Carlisle School. As a past graduate, this is the best Christmas Present I have ever received.