Jane H. Aiken has been appointed the new dean of Wake Forest University School of Law, effective July 1. Dean Aiken comes to Wake Forest from Georgetown Law, where she has been a professor and administrator since 2007 and currently serves as the Blume Professor of Law.
“Jane Aiken’s distinguished career as an attorney, an advocate and a teacher-scholar – particularly in the areas of legal education, women’s rights and evidence – makes her exceptionally well qualified to lead the Wake Forest University School of Law,” said Wake Forest President Nathan O. Hatch.
Prior to joining the Georgetown faculty, Dean Aiken was the William Van Cleve Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis. While at Washington University, she was selected as a Fulbright Scholar to teach law at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, Nepal. She has also taught in law schools at University of South Carolina and Arizona State University.
Dean Aiken has earned many awards and honors for her contributions to the legal profession. She is a leading scholar in clinical pedagogy and has directed a wide array of clinics involving prisoner’s rights, domestic violence against women and children, HIV, homelessness, police brutality and international human rights.
She will succeed Suzanne Reynolds, who announced last year that she would return to the law faculty after stepping down as dean at the end of this academic year. When asked about her new position Dean Aiken said,
“Wake Forest Law has it all: a brilliant and sought-after faculty dedicated to excellence as both teachers and scholars, a talented student body committed to making a difference as leaders in the law profession and a hard-working, mission-driven staff in a University where there is a real sense that anything is possible.”
Read the full announcement here.