Rodriguez to step down as dean of Northwestern University's Pritzker School of Law
Dean Daniel Rodriguez/Courtesy Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.
Daniel Rodriguez, dean of Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, will be stepping down from the position at the end of the 2017-18 academic year, the school announced Tuesday.
An administrative law scholar, Rodriguez also has an endowed chair at the school, and will be staying there as a professor, following a sabbatical that concludes at the end of the 2018-19 academic year, according to a press release.
Rodriguez was appointed dean in 2012. In that role, he’s led a fundraising campaign that has generated $220 million – including $100 million naming gift from hotel scion and venture capitalist J.B. Pritzker and his wife, M.K. Pritzker.
Under Rodriguez’s guidance, the school has opted to include Graduate Record Exam scores in the admissions process and has introduced a Master of Science in Law degree, designed for professionals in STEM fields.
“I am proudest of mobilizing real change in educational programming, maintaining our commitment to excellence and rigor while also leveraging our great reputation to establish bold new models of professional education for a changing world,” Rodriguez said in the release. “Our commitment to innovation has enabled us to move the needle, and I look forward with eager anticipation to the law school’s next chapter.”
Additionally, Rodriguez is an advisory board member of the American Bar Association’s Center on Innovation and was a member of the ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services. He is a past president of the Association of American Law Schools.
University Provost Jonathan Holloway will oversee an “international search” for Rodriguez’s replacement, according to the release.
A Harvard Law School graduate, Rodriguez also served as dean of the University of San Diego School of Law, from 1998 to 2005, according to his law school profile.
Updated Sept. 20 to correct reference to the ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services.
