Release date: May 31, 2005
Contact: Deb Hammacher, Associate Director, University Media Relations,
at 404-727-0644 or deb.hammacher@emory.edu

Emory Law School Names Frank Alexander as Interim Dean

Emory Law School professor Frank S. Alexander has been named interim dean of the school, effective June 6, according to an announcement by Emory University Provost Earl Lewis.

"After consultation with President James Wagner and with members of the law school community, law alumni and members of the broader community, it was clear that Frank Alexander was the ideal person to lead the school as it prepares for a permanent dean," says Lewis.

Alexander will succeed Thomas C. Arthur, who is stepping down to return to research and teaching as a member of the law school faculty.

The search advisory committee to select a permanent dean will be chaired by Thomas J. Lawley, M.D., dean of the Emory University School of Medicine, and will include staff, faculty, alumni and current law students.

Alexander has been a member of the Emory Law School faculty since 1982, when he founded the Law and Religion Program. He continues to serve as co-director, and also is the director of the Project on Affordable Housing and Community Development. In recent years his work has focused on affordable housing, urban redevelopment, and state and local government law. The author of "Georgia Real Estate Finance and Foreclosure Law" (4th edition, 2004), and co-editor with John Witte Jr. of "The Weightier Matters of the Law: Essays on Law and Religion" (1988), Alexander has published more than 30 other articles in real estate finance, law and theology, and state and local government law. He served as a fellow of The Carter Center of Emory University from 1993-96, and as a commissioner of the State Housing Trust Fund for the Homeless from 1994-98.

Alexander teaches property, real estate sales and finance, state and local government law, law and theology, and federal housing policies and homelessness. He has received the Student Bar Association Outstanding Professor Award (2004), the Ben F. Johnson Award for Excellence in Teaching (1998), the Emory Williams Award for Distinguished Teaching in Professional Education (1991), Black Law Student Association Award for Professor of the Year (1999-2000), and the Student Bar Association Award as the Professor Who Best Exemplifies the Ideals of the Legal Profession (on eight occasions).

He has a B.A. from University of North Carolina (1973), and J.D. and M.T.S. from Harvard University (1978).

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