Oh Captain, My Captain

Other members of the Jurisdynamics network are reporting that Dean Chen will be leaving the University of Minnesota Law School to become Dean of the Brandeis School of Law at Kentucky. Although the promotion is certainly deserved, the loss to Minnesota Law and its community is enormous. Dean Chen helped make law school interesting and fun and even entertaining, a place where the connection to other disciplines and the world outside the classroom was embraced and not shunned. While publishing in a seemingly endless range of fields and, recently, in an endless series of blogs, Dean Chen found time to support TORT and the Fighting Mondales and the little things that made school more bearable. In short, we will miss him. I certainly wish him the very best and hope that he considers a return to Minnesota in the not-too-distant future.

And at this point, I'm standing on my desk reciting Whitman's ode, because a maudlin act now and then is perfectly okay, I think.