UNL names law faculty member Poser dean of College of Law

Released on 02/17/2010, at 4:25 PM
Office of University Communications
University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Lincoln, Neb., February 17th, 2010 —
Susan Poser
Susan Poser

Susan Poser, a professor of law at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Law and chief of staff and associate to the chancellor, has accepted appointment as the dean of the UNL College of Law. The appointment, pending approval by the University of Nebraska Board of Regents, was announced today by Ellen Weissinger, UNL's interim senior vice chancellor for academic affairs.

"We're extremely pleased that Dr. Susan Poser has agreed to become the next dean of our College of Law," Weissinger said. "Susan is an accomplished legal scholar and educator whose deep understanding of the college and broad connections to the university make her especially well suited for this position."

Poser will assume the dean's post on May 15.

Poser became chief of staff and associate to the chancellor at UNL in 2007, and has been a professor at the UNL College of Law since joining the faculty full-time in 1999, being promoted to associate professor in 2004 and full professor in 2008. In 2005, Poser became director of UNL's Robert J. Kutak Center for the Teaching and Study of Applied Ethics. The center's mission is to serve as a resource for faculty who want to integrate ethics into their teaching and research. She has been on the Women's and Gender Studies faculty, the Chancellor's Commission on the Status of Women, and served as chair of the University of Nebraska System-wide Gender Equity Committee. In 2005 she received the Law College's Distinguished Teaching Award.

Poser is a member of the Pennsylvania and Nebraska bars and serves on the Ethics Committee of the Nebraska State Bar Association. In 2006 she was awarded the Shining Light Award from the Nebraska State Bar Foundation for her work on the Nebraska Rules of Professional Conduct. She was a law clerk to Chief Judge Dolores K. Sloviter of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. She practiced law in Philadelphia and was the Zicklin Fellow in Ethics in the Legal Studies Department of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. In spring 2004, she was a visiting professor at the Boalt Hall School of Law at University of California, Berkeley.

Poser earned her bachelor's degree in ancient Greek and political science from Swarthmore College, her J.D. from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, and her Ph.D. from the Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program, also at University of California, Berkeley. She teaches courses on torts, products liability, the legal profession, wills and trusts; and court, politics and legal/social reform.

"This is a huge honor for me and I am thrilled and excited to return to the Law College in this new role," Poser said. "I am looking forward to working with the college's accomplished faculty, highly skilled staff, and dedicated alumni to further enhance the education that we offer to our students and to build on the great strengths that we already have in scholarly research and service to the bar and the state."

Poser replaces former dean Steven Willborn who returned to faculty ranks in 2009. Law professor Anna Shavers has been serving as interim dean.

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