College of Law, University of Illinois

Dean Heidi M. Hurd
David C. Baum Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy
Co-Director of the Program in Law and Philosophy
Telephone (217) 333-9857
hhurd@law.uiuc.edu

As the corn and soy beans are harvested this month across Illinois� endlessly lovely plains, the College celebrates its own harvest: new programs, new clinical initiatives, new student organizations, and new alumni gifts and successes! In this month�s letter, I want to share with all of you just a sampling of the amazing produce that the College has to boast, and tell you about the events and activities to which all are invited during the coming weeks.

First, the College is now reaping the rewards of two new multi-disciplinary programs�the Program in Law and Economics, directed by Professor Tom Ulen, and the Program in Law and Philosophy, co-directed by Professor Michael Moore and me. This Fall the Program in Law and Economics is hosting four speakers�Brian Leiter from Texas, Douglas Kysar from Cornell, Andrew Guzman from UC-Berkeley, visiting at Harvard Law School, and Steve Levitt from the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago. (Steve Levitt was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal this past Spring as �the best economist under 40,� and Tom Ulen reports that almost everyone who has won the Clark Medal has gone on to win the Nobel Prize.) The Program will host four more speakers in the Spring, and will co-sponsor a June conference on Access to Medicines: Intellectual Property and Public Health. In tandem with the College�s new Asian Law, Politics, and Society Program (directed by Professor Tom Ginsburg), it will also be sponsoring a series of learning sessions for our own faculty on statistics and econometrics. And in collaboration with the Program in Law and Philosophy, it will co-sponsor a Spring roundtable on Probability and Causation.

The College of Law's Program in Law and Philosophy is hosting four events this year: the Annual Public Philosophy Lecture (co-sponsored by the UIUC Philosophy Department) and three roundtables (each of which brings together lawyers, philosophers, and social scientists at the cutting edge of a topic in the mission of collectively advancing its frontier). This year�s Annual Public Philosophy Lecture will be given by Thomas Nagel of New York University, who is widely regarded as one of the world's pre-eminent philosophers. In commemoration of Brown v. Board of Education, he will be speaking on the topic of Equality. The Program�s roundtables this year include gatherings on Nietzsche and Normativity; Probability and Causation (co-sponsored by the College of Law's Program in Law and Economics, the UC-Berkeley Law and Economics Program, and the Institute for Law and Philosophy of the University of San Diego), and a topic still to be determined (co-sponsored with the University of Iowa Philosophy Department).

The New International Human Rights Clinic

Under the direction of Professor Patrick Keenan, who joined the College�s permanent faculty this Fall, students in the Human Rights Clinic are collaborating this year with international human rights organizations on some of the most compelling human rights issues that the world confronts. In past semesters, they have, for example, worked on proposed legislation for four countries in East Africa to protect people with HIV and AIDS from employment discrimination; proposed strategies to help a group of widows whose husbands lost their lives at the hands of the government of Mauritania collect compensation for their grievous losses; analyzed ways to reduce pre-trial detention of persons accused of crimes in various countries in Africa; and reported on the law and politics of the disarmament process in Karamoja, Uganda.

The College is very proud of the entrepreneurial spirit of its students, and this Fall that spirit has been vividly apparent in the creation of four new student organizations. The Disability Law Society, Law School Democrats, Law Students for Choice, and Street Law were created this Fall as means of responding to the wide range of interests that currently characterizes the student body. Students now have the option to join any of 33 organizations and alumni, faculty, or staff interested in helping with any of the student organizations can contact Dean Virginia Vermillion for information about their goals and activities.

This month we celebrate, as well, the College�s harvest of student and alumni successes as Homecoming reunites the generations of students whose professional lives started here. And in the spirit of experimentation, we can�t resist doing things a little differently this year! On Friday, October 24, the College will host an altogether new Homecoming Reception and Dinner in the Pedersen Pavilion, with after-dinner dancing to the celebrated Jazz!Band. At this inaugural Homecoming occasion, emceed by alumnus Steve Molo (�82), we�ll invite the reminiscences of class representatives, toast the reunions of at least 12 College classes, and present Distinguished Alumni awards to Lynn Murray, the first woman to be named managing partner of a major Chicago law firm, Grippo and Elden; Traci Nally, founder and senior partner of Nally, Haasis and Bauer, a law firm in Champaign that began with all women partners and has long been a leader in local community service; Terrance Paul, Co-Chair of Renaissance Learning, a leading national provider of educational materials for elementary and secondary schools; Supreme Court Justice James Regnier of the Montana Supreme Court; and Michael Tarnow, Chairman of the Board of EntreMed, a leading biopharmaceutical company.

On Saturday morning, October 25, we�ll all gather for a Homecoming Brunch and Pep Rally that will guarantee the Fighting Illini a cheering section with which they surely can�t lose! The Brunch will feature a continuously running video of key events in the life of the College in 2002-03, a rousing performance by the very hip a capella musical group, the Xtension-Cords, and maybe even a surprise guest appearance from the athletic department. It'll be a once in a lifetime experience (because we'll be doing an altogether different program next year!), so don�t miss it!

Everyone is invited�all alumni, students, faculty, and staff. The Friday Evening Homecoming Reception is complimentary for all. Those who would like to purchase tickets for the Friday evening Homecoming Dinner or the Saturday Brunch and/or football game should contact Barb Suderman in the Dean�s Suite ASAP at sudermn@law.uiuc.edu. Students may purchase Friday dinner tickets for half price. And to show your true blue and orange colors at Homecoming, you are encouraged to log onto www.law.uiuc.edu/bookstore for the latest collection of College and University apparel.

Peer�s Pub

The College�s weekly afternoon happy hour, �Peer�s Pub,� continues in the Pedersen Pavilion every Thursday from 4:00-6:00 pm. All students, faculty, senior administrators, and alumni are invited! Please note: Peer�s Pub will not be moved, cancelled, or postponed simply because lectures, conferences, or other events of community importance are scheduled against its regular time. (Had it been moved or cancelled this semester every time a request was made to accommodate another event, it would have been held at its scheduled time only once thus far!) However, student groups are welcome and encouraged to �piggy-back� fund-raising events or other student activities onto Peer�s Pub. To make arrangements to do so, please contact Assistant Dean Virginia Vermillion.

College alumni in the Washington D.C. area recently enjoyed a marvelous reunion at the home of Gant (�61) and Fran Redmon. Made possible through the generosity of Host Committee Members Gant Redmon (�61); Jackie Goff (�73); Jean Manning (�83 ); Allan Mendelsohn (�55); and Carl Vacketta (�65), it was a beautiful evening in Alexandria, VA, attended by a large number of alumni and friends.

We have some handsome scholarship gifts to the College of Law to celebrate this month. The Delmer R. Mitchell Scholarship was created in honor of Del Mitchell (�66) by his partners in the Quincy, Illinois, law firm of Schmiedeskamp, Robertson, Nue & Mitchell. Terrance (�74) and Judith Paul have graciously endowed the Terrance D. Paul Law Scholarship at the College of Law. Bill Fechtig, J. David Andrews, David Murray and Willis Tribler have tirelessly continued their efforts to establish the Class of 1960 Fortieth Reunion Scholarship, and with their help, the Class of 1960 is coming close to having the first-ever fully endowed class scholarship at the College of Law!

We also celebrate this month the newly-created Richard W. and Marie L. Corman Distinguished Visiting Professorship, which will be inaugurated during the Spring semester by Professor Alan Schwartz from Yale Law School, who will be in residence to teach a new course on "Corporate Control and Bankruptcy." We are also delighted to announce the creation of the new Richard W. and Marie L. Corman Faculty Scholar Position.

Finally, please join me in lifting a metaphorical glass to a number of faculty, staff, and alumni who just recently joined the John E. Cribbet Society: Gregory S. Bell (�75); Associate Director of Development Jeff Coates; Professor John D. Colombo (�81); Arnold I. Havens (�73); Charles C. Hines (�60); John B. Jenkins (�61); Lynn H. Murray (�85); Dwight H. O�Keefe III (�68); Michael R. E. Sanders (�85); and Assistant Dean Virginia M. Vermillion (�86).

I hope that you are enjoying the onset of Fall and that you will plan to join in the events of the College community as often as your schedule will permit. My very best for the coming weeks.

Heidi M. Hurd
Dean and David C. Baum Professor of Law and Philosophy
College of Law
University of Illinois