September 3, 2003
The Associated Press
SOUTH ROYALTON — L. Kinvin Wroth, the dean of the Vermont Law School, is leaving the school’s top job next summer.
Wroth, 71, will resume his job as a tenured law professor after eight years as dean.
Wroth said Tuesday that he wants to spend more time working with students and doing research — and less on administration. Before starting at Vermont Law School in 1996, Wroth served as dean of the University of Maine’s law school from 1978 to 1990.
“This will be more than 20 years out of the last 40-plus that I’ve spent running law schools,” he said. “I want to get back to the teaching and the writing.”
The private, independent Vermont Law School was started in 1972 and now has about 500 students and 40 full-time faculty. It is a small law school that is known nationally for its environmental law program.
A U.S. News and World Report survey of legal educators last spring named it the best place in the country to study environmental law. The school has placed first nine times since the environmental specialty rankings began in 1991 and has never placed lower than second.
Vermont Law School is also unusual among law schools for its rural setting, in the village of South Royalton.
“You have to like to live in the country” to work there, said Prof. Gil Kujovich, co-chairman of the search committee formed to find the person who will serve as the next president and dean.
Vermont Law School recently began a capital fundraising campaign that Wroth said he is committed to working on in the coming year. There are also plans for some ambitious renovation projects on the campus.
And Wroth’s successor, who will report directly to the Board of Trustees, might also come in as school leaders revisit the campus master plan.
Wroth noted that his stay of eight years in the top job will be relatively long for a law school dean — almost twice the national average.
Vermont Law School’s longest-serving dean was there for nine years.
“Changeover is good for any institution,” said Wroth.
Kujovich said the salary of the top job is competitive with others nationally.
“The Vermont Law School has incredible potential,” Kujovich said. “There’s a chance for somebody to continue to build this school.”
Wroth, who lives in Sharon, said he expects he’ll be asked to serve on boards and in other capacities as more of his time becomes available.
But he has no plans to take on another high-profile job.
“Not if I can help it,” he said with a smile.
