Collins named SMU law dean

December 17, 2013

Vice Provost Jennifer Collins has been named Judge James Noel Dean of Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law. SMU made the announcement today.

“Jennifer was everything one could possibly wish for in a vice provost and cherished colleague: attentive to concerns across faculty, students, and staff, stretching from classrooms and faculty offices to Reynolda House and WFDD; creative in devising thoughtful and innovative approaches to topics from online education to well-being at WFU; and somehow amid it all continuing to teach hugely popular Law School courses–and raise her three fabulous children,” said Provost Rogan Kersh. “That we will miss her terribly across our Wake Forest community is a profound understatement.”

In addition to earning both of the Wake Forest School of Law’s top teaching awards, Collins led the successful efforts to establish the LGBTQ Center and the Women’s Center at Wake Forest, organized a visionary yearlong series of conversations on campus culture, and this past year spearheaded the University’s planned wellbeing initiative. Last year, she also chaired a campus-wide group discussing expanded use of the WFU Center in Charlotte and played an integral role in creating the new Faculty Fellows program.

Collins joined the Wake Forest School of Law faculty in 2003, with areas of focus in criminal law and family law. She taught criminal law, criminal procedure, family law, and gender and the law. Named associate provost for academic and strategic initiatives in 2010, she was appointed vice provost in 2013.

Before arriving at Wake Forest, Collins was a homicide prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, worked in private practice, and clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit. Collins earned her JD at Harvard and BA at Yale.

She will begin her appointment as SMU’s law school dean on July 1.

Read SMU’s announcement here.