Summer 2010 Welcome from the Dean

July 1, 2010 (sent to staff)

When I was growing up, I always looked forward to the first day of the school year. I have always welcomed that renewed anticipation of adventure, and I consider myself very lucky to be able to experience it annually. Today, I woke up in San Francisco, and with my wife, Carol Izumi, marveled at the view of the ocean, the scent of eucalyptus, and the roar of the wind over the hill. Our dogs are here; our bird is coming very soon. We have just set up our household, and it was great to have been able to ride my motorcycle downtown, through the fog into the morning clearing.

University of California Hastings College of the Law is a terrific institution. From the storied Sixty-Five Club to the modern-day Centers, it has been and continues to be a place unlike any other.

Together, we begin work. We have an opportunity. We have been given the chance to write a new script. We can do so not only for our individual ambitions but also our institutional identity.

It is crucial for those of us entrusted with a leadership role to proclaim, without hesitation, that only cooperation will ensure our continued success. I know I would not be coming here, to serve in what for me is a dream job, if it were not for the support I have been honored to receive from every constituency - in particular the staff. In this spirit, I would like to express appreciation to you for all that you have done as well as to issue a call to all who would join in this initiative. A sense of stakeholding is what is needed above all.

I look forward to meeting you. You as an individual are integral. I intend for you to be engaged as actively as possible, and it is important that you be given a sense of exactly how your efforts form part of a whole.

For that reason, I'd like to communicate to you exactly what I have communicated to the faculty. In an introductory message to them, I wrote:

The vision I presented as a candidate for the position of dean was based on three ideals. Each of these aspects of the vision is already inherent in the strengths of our school.

• First, higher education must train students for their careers by giving them the actual skills needed to succeed;
• Second, the lawyers of today must be ready to function within a global economy including but not limited to a trans-Pacific emphasis; and,
• Third, the best advocates and counselors are those who blend their technical abilities in analyzing formal doctrine with the insights of other disciplines as well, becoming problem-solvers and leaders.

Through an inclusive process of strategic planning, embracing shared governance, we will lay out in concrete, detailed terms the implementation of our goals.

My priority as your dean is institutional advancement. The term "advancement" encompasses fundraising, but it means much more than that. Virtually everything we aspire to do requires external help. Our friends recognize our acute needs, especially given the significant reductions in state funding in the past generation, but they demand more than just a statement of necessity. They also are prevailed upon by many other causes no less undeniable.

Accordingly, we must state a compelling case. We must be the advocates we train our students to become. Our message is persuasive not in the abstract but only as it applies to our audience. We are asking our alumni to make an ongoing commitment well beyond their graduation.

Our research and teaching as faculty members fulfills an agreement we have made as a community. Regardless of our specializations, we have a cause. Our social contract is that we will form a diverse democracy. We have become a people from different origins, with various languages, multiple faiths, rich traditions, bound to one another by our freedoms. What makes it possible is the rule of law. We subscribe to a set of principles, valuing the Constitution and protecting civil rights. Everything else - the economy, the arts, technological advances -- depends on this foundation.

I am mindful, too, of the realities of higher education and the legal profession. We face challenges that are unprecedented. Ever since the United States, unique as a nation in the course of human history, began its ascent, others the world over have looked to it as a beacon of hope and opportunity. Citizens who have had the benefit of belonging to this most prosperous of societies have been assured that each successive generation would exceed the preceding in material comforts. Yet now we understand that the forces of international competition and the trends of income stratification, exacerbated by the current economic crisis, along with myriad factors beyond our control, might make it difficult for those who trust in this profound experiment to assume that our continued progress is automatically assured.

So for prospective students and their families, considering a substantial investment of time and money in the J.D. program, the proposition must be worthwhile. We are promising our students upward mobility - that they in turn will be exemplars of hope and opportunity. Anxieties about law school are perennial, but they have changed from concerns about personal performance to doubts about the entire endeavor. Such apprehensions ought to be addressed rather than dismissed.

There is so much for us to do. I will be calling on you. I invite you to participate. I welcome your involvement. I'll be holding a Town Hall for staff, and I have an open door policy.

Finally, I'd like to convey, not for the last time, my gratitude toward Acting Chancellor & Dean Leo Martinez. Our transition has worked so wonderfully, because he is as generous as he is effective.

With warmest regards,
Frank H. Wu