This week many of the women lawyers in Kansas will gather in Lindsborg as they do each year. I cannot report firsthand what goes on there because, for obvious reasons, I don’t attend. On the other hand, women friends who do attend have told me that it is an opportunity for the attendees to network and chat with each other as well as attend various educational and professional programs. But this year is a special year because, for the first time, a Kansas law school dean will attend, not as a special guest, but as a one of the woman lawyers.

This Monday, Dean Gail Agrawal began what the faculty at Kansas University School of Law hope will be a long tenure as dean. She comes to Lawrence, and the KU law school from the University of North Carolina where she served as a professor, associate dean and, in her final year, as interim dean.

I have it on good authority that the folks at North Carolina, from the faculty all the way to the president’s office, all wish she had stayed there and assumed the deanship on a permanent basis.

Happily for us in Lawrence and at KU she chose to leave Chapel Hill and come here.

Dean Agrawal brings with her some very special experience and skills. Most law professors tend to spend only a few short years in actual practice before they enter academe. Dean Agrawal spent a full decade in practice, both in law firms and in a large corporation.

She also brings expertise as a health lawyer to KU, joining another fairly new professor, Elizabeth Weeks, in this important field. This gives the KU law school a new subject strength which will help us to continue to recruit the best law students as well as permit the law school to support the new biosciences initiatives both at KU and in Kansas as a whole.

Dean Agrawal’s enthusiasm for her subject and her willingness to bring her expertise as a health law specialist to our community is demonstrated by the fact that she and professor Weeks have already begun planning a symposium on health law to be held at KU next year.

Being a dean is never easy. Faculties, even the best, can be difficult. Money is always tight at public universities. Deans have to raise substantial sums.

The many things a dean must do put enormous demands on her. To succeed, a dean needs commitment, enthusiasm and a willingness to give 110 percent. It’s already clear that Dean Agrawal has all of that and more. But a dean also needs alumni and community support.

Dean Agrawal not only is eminently qualified by training and experience to lead KU Law she also stands as an important symbol of the progress women have made in the legal profession and in the professions generally. She’s humble about her achievements, but these achievements are substantial. I hope that everyone here in Lawrence and in Kansas gets to know her and make her feel welcome.