Courtesy Georgetown Office of Communications

Georgetown University named Alexander Aleinikoff to be the next executive vice president for Law Center Affairs and dean of the Law Center yesterday. Aleinikoff will succeed Dean Judith Areen, who will return to the faculty on July 1.

Areen said that Aleinikoff’s background in immigration law and constitutional law make him uniquely situated to lead Georgetown into the 21st century as one of the world’s great law schools.

“He’s the right person as we become one of the great law schools not only in the nation but globally as well,” Areen said. “[His background] is so central to the questions that we face on a global basis, and he will lead Georgetown to global leadership in law.”

Aleinikoff has been a professor of law at Georgetown since 1997 and was named Associate Dean of Research last September.

The Law Center Dean serves as the chief academic and administrative officer of the Law Center, providing leadership and management of the center’s academic programs while overseeing daily operations.

Aleinikoff said he plans to continue Areen’s efforts at building a stronger student body and faculty.

“The major challenges are to keep the momentum going forward,” Aleinikoff said. “My top priorities include faculty hiring, financial assistance for students and helping establish and further international initiatives.”

The Law Center is currently working to finish its campus completion project, which includes the Eric Hotung International Law Building and a fitness and recreation center.

During Areen’s tenure, the law center campus expanded to include the E.B. Williams Law Library, the Gewirz Student Center and a new wing on the McDonough Building. The campus has also converted two streets into landscaped walkways.

“We have a campus now,” Aleinikoff said. “During Judy’s time, the law school has improved in every way – student satisfaction, the quality of the student body. We have added important new faculty members and have these three great new buildings.”

The law center has also risen in different college rankings, placing in last year’s U.S. News and World Report at 14th overall and first in clinical training, third in trial advocacy and fourth in international law.

“Judy has marched Georgetown into the forefront of American law schools,” Aleinikoff said.

She joined the Georgetown faculty in 1972, when the faculty had only one full-time woman professor, and became dean in 1989.

She expanded the size of the faculty to 101 full-time members, increasing the number of faculty by 45, and making it the nation’s largest law-school faculty. The increase in faculty size led to smaller class sizes and more faculty-student interaction.

As dean, Areen also helped raise more than $100 million for the Law Center. She has twice been named one of the top 100 lawyers in the United States by the National Law Journal and was named Equal Justice Works’ 2003 Outstanding Law School Dean.

Areen remained popular among faculty and students in her 15 years as dean. After completing her second five-year term in 1998, then-President Leo J. O’Donovan, S.J., created an uproar when he decided not to renew her contract. Faculty members expressed outrage that he had not consulted them and students and alumni signed a petition and threatened to withhold their donations to the Law Center. O’Donovan later reversed his decision.

Aleinikoff has published over 50 books and articles on immigration law, constitutional law and statutory interpretation and teaches courses in immigration and refugee law, citizenship law and constitutional law. He also serves as a senior associate at the igration Policy Institute.

Prior to arriving at Georgetown, Aleinikoff held several high-level positions in the Immigration and Naturalization Service at the U.S. Department of Justice. He was general counsel of the INS from 1994 to 1995 and served as executive associate commissioner for programs from 1995 to 1997. While at the INS he taught refugee law at the Law Center as an adjunct professor.

Aleinikoff also spent 15 years on the faculty at the University of Michigan Law School after graduating from Yale Law School in 1977, where he served as an editor on the Yale Law Journal. He graduated summa cum laude from Swarthmore College in 1974.