Widener Law May Slim Down & Split Into Two Schools

According to a recent news report, Widener Law is considering following the path of Penn State Law and splitting into two separately accredited law schools: one in Delaware and one in Harrisburg, PA.  If both plans come to pass, there will be two new law schools - both located in metro Harrisburg.  Hmmm...

In separate news, but from the same news report, Widener offered 21 law faculty members a buyout.  No details on the number who accepted.

Comments

[Ben Barros]

I have a lot of personal knowledge about this, and anyone interested in actual facts should know that what Mary Allen, our press person, said in the linked article is exactly correct, and everything that the reporter and his anonymous (and remarkably uninformed) sources suggest to the contrary is exactly false. It isn't a big deal, but that also means that Dan's suggestion that we are "following the path of Penn State Law" is also wrong. I'm also puzzled by Dan's hmmming about two new law schools in the Harrisburg area, since these are already existing campuses.

[ts]

@ Barros: The article does say "In February, [Widener] offered buyout packages to 21 law professors and 17 other professors university-wide. Of the law professors, 16 were based in Wilmington and five were located in Harrisburg." Is that part of the story not correct? I take it that the attempted buyouts were not a result of any prior accreditation efforts, except as the buyouts might be necessary financially to keep the rest of the boat afloat.

[Dan Filler]

Ben, I suppose my "hmmm" is related to the idea that the two Harrisburg campuses will face different challenges as independent law schools and all in a rather small market. At the most basic level, I'd expect there to be costs related to losing scale: operational expenses may rise and the flexibility of a larger faculty may disappear. But I also wonder about the effects of losing the tuition stream from the larger campuses. Of course, I don't know anything about how these changes might alter revenue sharing structures.

[Ben Barros]

ts, yes, that part is correct, though "accepted" is more accurate than "offered". They have nothing to do with accreditation.

Dan, those are fair things to wonder about. I think you would be correct about increased costs. Hence, as I said, Mary Allen was absolutely correct when she said we have no definite plan to move forward right now. On finances, I don't think it is safe to assume that either campus of either school supports the other.

[what's happening?]

Are you saying that 21 law faculty accepted buyouts?