Dean Moran graciously sat down for over an hour with Ultra Vires where she gave us her thoughts on everything from her departure to tuition. This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity. “KK” is Kent Kuran. “KG” is Katherine Georgious. “MM” is Mayo Moran.
The Dean’s Departure
KG: Your departure came as a bit of a surprise to everybody. How long were you planning this move?
MM: I wouldn’t say I was planning the move. But, I was approached by Trinity some time in the fall, and so they asked me about the job. I mean, I get asked about a lot of jobs. So they asked me about the job in the late fall.
KG: If you are asked about a lot of jobs, what attracted you to the Trinity position?
MM: You know, I didn’t want to leave U of T. I like U of T. I wanted to keep my eye on the building project, (I’m kidding). I like students, so I didn’t want to work in a position that took me to a central office where I didn’t have contact with students. I really enjoy that. And I like working with great students. I think after the Faculty of Law it would be hard to go to a place where the students weren’t really excellent. And Trinity seems like a wonderful, interesting, place. So that’s basically what it was.
KK: Is it a coincidence? Because Trinity has this reputation of being the prestigious college at U of T. It’s known as a place for pre-law students. Was that just a coincidence or something you thought about?
MM: I think it was mainly coincidence. I mean, that’s how I knew Trinity, because we have a lot of grads who have gone to Trinity. In fact, when it was announced a whole bunch of our students said, “Oh, I was a Trinity grad!” So that’s how I knew Trinity. But I didn’t approach them. They approached me.
KG: Will you still have a connection with the Faculty of Law? Will you still be teaching here as a torts professor? Will you still be doing research?
MM: I will still be doing research. I won’t be teaching a big class. I’ll do some graduate student supervision. I have a few doctoral and graduate students, so I’ll continue to do that. Maybe once I get more into the new job I’ll do some additional stuff here, but pretty minimal.
KG: Were you ever considering seeking a third term as Dean?
MM: You know third terms as Dean are pretty unusual and I think that’s for a good reason. There’s sort of a moment for renewal, so I didn’t think about that.
KG: So by 2015 [when your second term as Dean ends] you were going to do some sort of move.
MM: That’s right. I have a lot of leave that I haven’t taken. (laughs)
KK: 2015 is the end of your term. This is a bit early.
MM: It is.
KK: Was there a reason for that?
MM: Nope. You know, I would have happily stayed until the end of my term but they approached me. And you know, a lot of times when there’s a job that looks interesting you can’t say, “Well, I’ll wait for a couple of years until I’m ready.” In many ways I would have been happy to finish my term, take my two years of leave, because I really haven’t had leave since 2005, and then carry on. But it came along and looked interesting.
KG: So you said they approached you in late fall. When did you know you were getting the job and when did other people start to know?
MM: That day, basically. So they have a system of something called “corporation”. And “corporation” has to vote in favour in order for an appointment to be final. And so they voted that morning and that’s when the announcement went out. Because it wasn’t final until they vote.
The New Building
KG: There are a lot of projects happening at the law school right now. Of course, probably the biggest one is the building. It seems to be your legacy project. What about the fact that the building seems to be delayed? There’s all this tree drama and whatnot. And you seem to be leaving in the middle of that. How is that going to affect the building project, if at all?
MM: It is delayed. A bit delayed. I’d say a few months. But it’s underway. And the most important thing and the thing I really felt I had to do was I had to get the money for the building. And I knew no one else could do that. I mean, frankly the construction phase, that’s handled centrally. There’s project managers, all that sort of thing. So the Dean’s hand in the construction phase is not very important. What’s really important and what was really critical for me was “make sure we get the money in”. And make sure that the building itself is the right kind of building for the law faculty. And of course, which was another thing I lost a lot of sleep over, “where were you guys all going to go?”
KG: So because the transition is done and the fundraising is done you don’t think that your departure is going to affect the timeliness of the project?
MM: No.
KK: On the issue of timeliness, there was a report that went to the business board of the Governing Council and it said that the building was delayed by at least six months. Do you know if there’s any movement to accelerate the project and what’s happening with the other permits?
MM: My understanding is that all the permits are in place. So that’s my understanding and that’s why they are able to go ahead now. So I don’t believe there’s any permit issues. I think the very last one was that tree one. Everything else happened a long time ago, from my understanding. But if you ask Scott [Maybury, VP of University Operations] he would have a better day-to-day grip on the permits. And on the delay; for sure, as I said on Faculty Council, it’ll be a few months delay. We are working hard with the contractors, who are terrific, to say, “What can you do to make it happen faster? Work Saturdays? Stagger it so that the public spaces are built first and finished first?” Because I think it’s the students who will have the most impact in terms of moving into the building early. Faculty don’t really care that much if they’re a month or a couple of months behind. So over the next little while, there’s going to be a whole bunch of work happening on that. And they’ve already been instructed to figure out how we can get this happening as quickly as possible.
KK: Are there any estimates? Because there was just that ‘best case scenario’ and that said 6 months delayed.
MM: You know what? It’s so far away. It’s still more than 18 months away. So I think it’s really hard to give accurate estimates right now.
KG: Do you think the class of 2016 will realistically see the new building?
MM: I do. Yeah.
KG: For their 3L year or part of their 3L year?
MM: Part of their 3L year.
KG: The whole year, that’s not happening?
MM: I don’t think that the whole year is going to happen now unfortunately.
KK: So it won’t be ready by September?
MM: You know from what I’ve seen that doesn’t seem to be likely. Again, that’s what I said at Faculty Council. But will it be during that year? I think so and I hope so. And we’re working hard for that.
KG: Do you think that they’ll transfer for the beginning of second semester or would you be open to transitioning back in the middle of a semester?
MM: You know, if I were the Dean what I would do is, I would talk to the students about it and say, “What would your preference be?”
KG: Do you think there was anything that could have been done to secure those permits earlier or was this tree thing something that could not have been [predicted]?
MM: I lost a lot of sleep over that tree (laughs). It’s very hard to know. There was no obvious mess up by anyone involved in the process at all. It looked as though everything was in place in the summer. And then odd things seemed to happen. Unfortunately the story of any kind of building project is that there are unforeseeable delays. I find it frustrating but I don’t see anyone to blame.
KG: Could this delay affect the budget of the school at all? And if so, how?
MM: Oh for sure it will affect the budget to some degree because we have to rent space for a longer period of time.
KG: Where’s that money going to come out of?
MM: I think that’s hard to know. I mean it will have to come out of the base budget of the law school. But depending on what the cost of it is, and I guess we’ll try and have to cut some of the costs of the building as well, a little bit. Or maybe fundraise a little bit more for the building, which I try to do before I go.
KK: So some features may get cut from the building?
MM: Not features. But there is a lot of latitude in terms of, “Do you put this kind of carpet or that kind of carpet? Etc” The basic building has been set, it’s been tendered and all that sort of thing.
KK: You mentioned that everything was in place in the summer. But on the permit website the City of Toronto government said that some of the permits were only applied for in October. And they were rejected in December.
MM: You know what, you should check with Scott. There’s a whole bunch of big permits and then there are little tiny ones. The only one I heard any issue about was this tree one.
KK: And is there any insight as to why the tree one was such a big issue and wasn’t dealt with years before?
MM: There seemed to be some difference of opinion between city staff and city councillors about how to legally capture something if you can believe it.
KK: Legally capture?
MM: Legally capture an agreement between the university and the councillor about the open space line. So it seemed to be the councillor thought one thing and the city legal staff said another thing and it took a long time to resolve, from what I understand. But my understanding is that the permit situation is in good shape, but you can check with Scott.
KG: Just from a numbers stand point, what is the estimated cost of the delay?
MM: I don’t know. I really don’t know.
KK: Do you know what a year at Vic is costing us now? Ballpark?
MM: I wouldn’t want to ball park it. I don’t want to try and guess. I can find that out for you.
KK: Is there room to expand? The new building has more space.
MM: The new building was not designed to vastly increase the size of the law school.
KK: What’s the maximum it can hold?
MM: I mean, you can’t really say that about physical space. I don’t know what the maximum is that it can hold. It wasn’t a project that was designed to encompass room for a vastly increased class. It was basically-
KK: What’s a “non-vastly” increased class?
MM: I think the law schools about the right size. And I think it’s good to keep it at this size. I think it’s good for the students because you know each other better, you have better relationships with your profs. I think it’s good for a whole range of reasons. It was designed with a student body of roughly this size. Roughly in mind.
KG: So Ottawa, Queens, a lot of schools have dramatically increased or are talking about increasing their class sizes. Do you think that will be on the agenda of the next Dean at all?
MM: I doubt it.
KK: So you don’t see a class size of 300? Because some of the classrooms can hold, I counted about 150 seats and there are about 4 auditoriums. So you can probably fit a class size of 300 if you schedule the classes in a certain way.
MM: My own sense was that I wasn’t keen to increase the size of the class. I wanted to make the program better. There were a whole bunch of other things I wanted to do. I’d leave it to the next person, but I would be surprised if there was a desire to vastly increase the size.
KG: What about the increase in transfer students?
MM: There’s a flux with transfer students and NCA students, and sort of a balance overall. I think NCAs have gone down and transfers have gone up. I don’t think it’s been just an increase in transfer students. One thing that has happened is that we get an incredible and increasing number of applications to transfer.
KG: Do you see the number of transfer students increasing over time?
MM: Not necessarily. I’d leave that to someone else.
KK: Decreasing them by any chance?
MM: I think there’s sort of a balance that you have between the space that you have and the different groups of people you have for different reasons. We have letter of permission, we have NCAs, we have transfer, we have exchange. And it’s sort of a balance over all. But I don’t see a particular trend and I don’t have a trend one way or another.
KG: So if money becomes tight, you would recommend other means of dealing with that other than increasing the class size? What would have to happen for class sizes-
MM: You know, I’m going to leave that to my successor.
Tuition/Financial Aid/Diversity
KG: So going on to other money issues. The line [students] always get is “high tuition, high aid”. And the high tuition is necessary for salaries to keep the best here and to keep this as the best program. But it’s offset by a high aid regime. Was the “high tuition, high salaries, high aid” approach the one that you wanted to take when you began as Dean?
MM: What I wanted to do was make sure that this was a really great law school and that students in Canada who had talent could come to a great law school that would be on the same level as the best law schools in the world. And that it would be really accessible. So that obviously takes resources and tuition is one source of resource. And so I think I always saw some tuition increase as part of the financial picture of the law school. And increases in financial aid and then fundraising increases, program money, etc…
KG: So, “some” tuition increases have become the maximum legal amount of increases for the last… since pretty much since you became Dean-
MM: Since tuition was deregulated, that’s right.
KG: So the maximum legal amount. When students hear “some” increases or “moderate” increases and they see the maximum legal increases they see that as sort of – it’s not really connecting. They’re not seeing “some” increases and the maximum legal amount as being the same thing.
MM: Right. I understand that. When I became Dean, there was a freeze on. And what I said, before the freeze came off, was that I wouldn’t be aggressive on tuition and I wouldn’t be flat on tuition. I would be modest on tuition. And I defined modest as somewhere between the rate of academic inflation and double digits. And academic inflation is about 5% and double digits is 10%, and 8 is somewhere between 5 and 10.
KG: And 8 is coincidentally how much we’re allowed to increase it.
MM: Yeah, that’s right.
KG: So if the Wynne government made the maximum legal limit 12% or 15% the law school would not increase it by that much?
MM: Again, I think what I said was it wouldn’t be double digit. So 12 is a double digit.
KK: [If tuition is deregulated in the province after an election] would you have increased tuition further? And do you see that happening under the next Dean?
MM: I don’t speculate about those sorts of things. I think it’s very hard to know and I leave it to the next Dean to do what he or she wants with tuition. But I guess what I would say is that I did raise it the legal amount, like every other law school in the province. We do that for a reason. It costs a lot of money to put on a great professional program. And at the same time we very carefully monitor accessibility, diversity, [and] financial aid. We do our best to bring in other money. We look at our application rate, our yield rate, etc… We do a lot of outreach. Tuition is one part of a picture. I don’t think you can look at it alone and I certainly didn’t and wouldn’t.
KG: How can we monitor something like sticker shock? I think the triggering point for a lot of student outrage came at the $30 000 mark. How can the school monitor for the fact that for low-income people, a $30 000/year school just seems so incomprehensible?
MM: Yeah, I understand that. I mean I come from a low-income background. And I think what we do is monitor who applies, [and] we compare that historically. So, it’s quantitative data. We can do that quite easily. We can look at different demographics, see who’s applying, see if you are seeing the same numbers, and we do all of that. And that looks good. And I think we do more than that and I’m committed to doing more than that. And that’s getting out into high schools and doing things like “See Yourself Here”, where we had a record number of students attend. And having the LSAT course and a whole bunch of other things that support people who might not traditionally think about it.
KG: What about students in rural areas who can’t access the physical building to be able to attend things like “See Yourself Here”?
MM: When we do the Aboriginal outreach we bus a whole bunch of students here. We do summer programs for students. I think it’s always a challenge for people in rural areas, but you know, I think we’re doing a fair amount there. There’s always more to look at.
KG: Is it difficult to compare with past years of the law school? I think law school was inaccessible for people 15, 20 years ago for reasons that aren’t quite the same as today. So I’m just curious if those are always the best markers we can use.
MM: There’s no way it’s fool proof, for sure. I think law has always been an elite profession. Law school was probably more elite when tuition was low here frankly. And we do a lot more than we used to do 20 years ago to try and make it more accessible. So that historic data is not perfect. It’s the best we have. But we also monitor a whole bunch of other things. We look at income levels, we look at what people do after, we look at where people come from. So there’s a whole bunch of different things that we do to try and get a good picture. I think it’s a constant process of trying to get good quantitative data and then doing everything you can to try and reach out as well.
KK: When the Faculty gives its diversity rate, it uses self-identification. But there’s a lot more than is skin deep. So one of those is socio-economic status. What has the Faculty done for that? Because one thing is the LSAT and the SAT are extremely highly correlated with parental income, so those students never even get a chance to get in.
MM: The LSAT is another whole area obviously. I’d be happy to talk about it at some point. But in terms of socio economic diversity, we monitor that as well. We did a study last year, we looked at where students live, postal codes, etc.. and we’ll continue to do that. I think it’s important. The LSAT prep course that we gave, we specifically made it available to people and we reached out to people in a whole bunch of institutions for people who came from economically disadvantaged backgrounds for that very reason. And we also did a whole bunch of work to help those people apply to law school, do personal statements, and that sort of thing. Because if you go to certain kinds of schools you get a lot of support for that. And if you go to other kinds of schools you don’t, to go back to your point about rural students. So we do a lot of work to try and counter that.
KK: What did you find from that study?
MM: You should ask Professor Alarie. We’ve got the details, it’s up on the website. But, it’s pretty consistent, it’s pretty stable.
KK: What percent of students are coming from these under advantaged families? I haven’t seen that.
MM: I don’t remember. It’s up on the website. You can ask Professor Alarie and I think it’s up on the website. I don’t want to quote numbers I don’t remember.
KG: We looked at copies of Ultra Vires from 2006 [when Dean Moran was elected]. The UV Editorial Board called for six action items for the next Dean, because it looked like the school was very tense at the time. One of them was better financial aid transparency. They wanted to understand what the distribution of aid looked like, average bursaries disclosed, more sort of just clarity. At the town hall, it was asked why there isn’t an estimate for financial aid for the next 3 years, rather than just the estimate for one year. How come since 2006 we haven’t had this transparency and what can we do going forward to get this transparency?
MM: I don’t know what was disclosed in 2006 versus now. I’m sure more is disclosed now. I don’t know how much more and what exactly, so it’s hard for me to answer what the difference is between 2006 and now. I don’t know what we did in 2006 off the top of my head. I bet there is more disclosed now. That’s certainly my sense. And is there more students would like? Maybe.
KG: Was transparency for the financial aid system on your agenda for your Deanship and should it be on the agenda for the next Dean?
MM: You know, I think what’s really important for financial aid is making sure there’s a really great financial aid program that is very needs sensitive. If you compare our financial aid system with the financial aid pool for other law schools, a lot of those pools go to merit not need. And it’s always very tempting for an institution to try to bolster its numbers by giving a lot of money to people who don’t actually need it on a means test. So to me what was most important as Dean was that we were using our money to address need and using our program to attract students. That was the most important thing.
KG: Is financial aid moving towards a back-end system? [Front end] financial aid went down quite dramatically between 2011 and now. And the justification we were told was that the system was moving towards a post graduate debt relief system-
MM: Students were quite keen on moving towards more of a post graduate system and that initiative actually came from the SLS and the Financial Aid Committee. They thought, and I can understand this, that it was more progressive to have a post-graduation debt relief system than to give out big bursaries. I had a student who had a very large bursary who was going to work in New York, and he said, “Why should I get the money?”
KK: So you want it to be income progressive?
MM: Yes. Exactly.
KG: So students weren’t very informed of this shift. How can students be better informed of these sort of decisions? Students sort of just get their little envelope [of aid] and either cry or rejoice or whatever. How can students be better informed of just how this financial aid pot is working? How come we’re not told how much money is in the pot?
MM: I believe the information about the money is public. I’m sure it’s up there. The changes in the system, that came from students. It went through the Financial Aid Committee, it was at Faculty Council.
KG: So do you feel this more of an SLS issue?
MM: I think the fact is that people don’t often pay attention to detailed information until they suddenly feel its impact on them. A lot of us are like that. We’ve actually done a lot of work with students and I think it’s pretty successful in general, trying to make sure that the information that is available on the website is as clear as possible and as helpful as possible. Communicating the details of something like a financial aid system is technical. It’s not that easy to read and students have been very helpful in trying to get us to communicate it in a clearer way. I’m sure if you have thoughts about that we’d be more than happy to have them.
KG: I guess that puts the burden on us to go through Governing Council documents, rather than us being told–
MM: It’s not Governing Council, it’s Faculty Council. And it’s your SLS reps.
KK: Is there a reason Faculty Council documents aren’t public? Governing Council documents are all public. Other faculties have their faculty council documents that go back years.
MM: I don’t think there’s any reason.
Kent: Could we see those go online?
MM: I’d be certainly happy to think about it. Yeah. I believe SLS posts a lot of the minutes, don’t they?
KG: No. They haven’t done it in months. We’ve looked.
KK: Even the agenda, the actual items presented to people at Faculty Council.
MM: Right, yeah.
KG: So I was working on the financial aid white paper because I tried to get involved in these things, and I never saw a single SLS publication, or the fruits of that work. Do you think we’re doing the best we can to parlay this information to students? Students are told to get involved but when they do try and get involved they sort of see a stopping point.
MM: Are there more things we can do? I’m sure there are. We’re always looking for more things to do and to get information out in better ways. And as I said, I think students have been very helpful on that. I’m sure there’s always more we can do to get information out.
KG: Staying on this topic of open communication, you’ve stated you wanted more town halls, more ways of getting student feedback. We have seen a big growth in town halls. But rather than being just given a place to give their opinions, students also want to know they are listened to and that what they say is being contemplated
MM: In terms of students being heard more generally, I think it’s not perfect. Have we done a pretty good job of listening to students? I would say absolutely. There have been a tonne of changes that have been generated by students. Now sometimes we hear students say “we want more money in back end debt relief’ but then it turns out that students might not like that. But that was actually a change that was strongly driven by students. As were a whole bunch of changes around parental deeming, and we did a lot of town halls around that. But the reality is that students are not monolithic. There’s a great diversity of points of view within the student body. And so one of things you have to try to balance as a leader is to get that diversity of points of view out there.
Recent Changes to the Law School Curriculum
KK: You have a lot of projects going in motion. The new grades came in. Next year, we’re going to see the new 1L curriculum. And for once, there’s actually a few required upper year courses. What would you have to say on all of those projects and the fact that you are leaving with a lot of them halfway through?
MM: I guess whenever you leave, if you are trying to do things there are always going to be things that aren’t completely done. I felt that with the building project, getting the funding in place, getting the project underway, having good swing space for students, those were all things that really needed me. I didn’t need to stay for the ribbon cutting. (laughing) Honestly, that’s what I want after all this work! I’m waiting for the good part, I did all the hard part.
Kent: Will you come back?
MM: Of course. For the grades, I felt that was really important to get a lot of student input. We did a huge amount of consultation; that was very driven by students. As were the changes to the 1L curriculum, which I thought were very important. I was very concerned about the April “first year phenomenon” for students. It was important for me to try and get that change through and I would be in a better position than someone coming in and then things would carry on for years. Those things I actually feel very good about. I hope they work out well. But I felt that those were all things that I really wanted to make happen.
KG: Are you going to be watching these things from Trinity College?
MM: Of course! Of course I am.
KG: Do you think you can intervene in anyway if you see something that’s not going your way or will you be very hands off?
MM (laughing): I’ll try not to. It’s hard. I’ve spent 22 years here. I came as a doctoral student. And it’s really sad to think about leaving because I love the law school. I hope I’ve made it better in some way. And I’m very connected with it and with the students and faculty. So it’s actually going to be hard to tell myself, “Okay, I’m going to let all this stuff go”.
Kent: As a first year, one thing I heard a lot was “oh we have Harvard grades”. And one thing I heard a lot was that the harder it was to get into a school, the grading curve is easier. So they can say an A from this school is not the same as an A from another school, and all of our students are very good, not just the ones at the top. Is that accurate?
MM: Yes. I spent years where, and this is one of the things that drove the grading change, I would go to law firms and they would say, “Are we getting your best students?” And I’d say, “All our students are fantastic. Our students are all great and you don’t need to be fixated on this”. That’s really important. You guys know, it’s a very hard place to get into. There are talented students in every law school in this country. But there’s a unique talent pool here. And I didn’t want students to be penalized for coming here. And I spent a lot of time writing letters to courts and employers and graduate school, which I’m happy to do, telling people what the grades were, the LSATs were, the achievement levels, the interest of the students. But I think part of the impetus was to try to create a grading system that made that more clear, so that people couldn’t just say “Oh this is just like an A from another school”.
Dean Daniels
KG: Finally, what are your thoughts about Dean Daniels coming to convocation?
MM: Well you know what? He was amazing. He did a huge amount to improve the school in many ways. I understand that there’s some controversy among students. But when you look at his legacy at the school, I mean, he started the International Human Rights Program. He started the LAWS high school outreach program. He started Pro Bono Students Canada. He got the first full-time director at Downtown Legal Services. I remember when I was interviewed when he became President of John Hopkins and they were all stunned that a Canadian lawyer became the President of an American research powerhouse that’s basically all about medicine. So he’s a very remarkable, accomplished, person who did a huge amount to improve this school. This school is the place it is because of him. And I think he’s completely deserving.
KG: Did you nominate Daniels for the honorary degree?
MM: It was a nomination from others, but I supported it and of course I would support it.
Final Exit Questions
KK: What do you think your legacy is, apart from the building?
MM: I would say the building for sure. I would also say hiring great faculty. I hired Yasmin Dawood, Douglas Sanderson, Vincent Chiao, Anthony Niblett, Larissa Katz, Malcolm Thorburn; a whole bunch of great faculty. I’m really proud of the Asper’s Centre, because there was no place in the country where students could get involved with cases that go to the Supreme Court and other places. So that would be another thing I’m very proud of. I’m really happy with what we’ve done for admissions and recruitment and sort of a pipeline element. I think those are big improvements. I’m glad our students go out and succeed, you know? It’s an era where a lot of people who graduate from law schools are struggling to find jobs and to do well. And you know, I think our students do very very well. But you know, we’ve kept it pretty small.
KG: What’s your dream job?
MM: What’s my dream job? Chef.
KG: What’s your dream job that you think you’re actually going to [achieve]…or do you not want to curse it?
MM: You know, I’m excited. I’m a little nervous about taking on this new job because I knew the law school really well when I became Dean. And I don’t know Trinity nearly as well. You asked me if I sort of picked it on purpose; no. But I’m excited about this, and I love the university notwithstanding all its twists and turns. And so I’m really excited about this one if I can’t be a chef.
KK: Is there anything after that? Because Trinity’s head seems to have changed quite a bit. A lot went to Oxford. Do you have plans for anything like that after?
MM: Not really. Some people have very elaborate life plans where they’re like, “I’m going to get to X”. I’ve never lived my life like that. I’m going to pursue what I like to do and see where it takes me. And so, that’s what I’ve done so far. It seems to have more or less worked out in some rough sense. And that’s what I’m doing now.
KG: So there’s no end game?
MM: I know some people operate like that but that’s never been the kind of approach I’ve taken.
KG: Do you get to make any contributions to who is the new Dean?
MM: No.
KG: No nomination, no nothing?
MM: Nope. Nope.
KG: Do you get to sit on the Advisory Committee?
MM: Nope. Nothing. You don’t pick your own successor and I think that’s a wise thing.
KK: Do you have any indications of who’s looking for the position?
MM: The last person they’re going to tell is me (laughs).
KG: What piece of advice would you give the new dean?
MM: Enjoy it. That’s it. It’s a great job. It’s a crazy job. There’s always a lot of stuff happening. At the same time, I honestly think that even on your worst days, it’s an amazing job to have. To be able to lead a place like this that has such a special role in the country, and try and think about what you can do to keep it going, to keep it flourishing, and how to make it better.
KG: How long did you want to be Dean before you got it?
MM: Oh, 15 minutes. I did not have a plan to become Dean. I was pretty junior when I became Dean. I had been Associate Dean and you know, really it was more of my colleagues that said, “You should really think about this”. So I didn’t have a plan to become Dean. As I said, I was pretty junior. I had just finished my first sabbatical when I became Dean. So my plan was to write another book about legal theory or tort law or something. And so I was kind of, people approached me and said, “You should think about doing this”. But you know what? I’ve loved it.
