David Yellen, a Chicago law school dean and professor, has been named the fourth president of Marist College, succeeding Dennis J. Murray when he retires on June 30 after 37 years as president of the liberal arts school in Poughkeepsie.
The Marist Board of Trustees on Feb. 6Â unanimously approved the appointment of Yellen, who is dean and professor of law at the Loyola University Chicago School of Law.
Yellen’s selection came one year after Murray, who was named Marist president in 1979, announced his transition plan for the top post and followed an intensive search process led by a 15-member presidential search committee that included Marist faculty and staff members, trustees, and student and alumni representatives, a Marist spokesman said.
A magna cum laude graduate of Princeton University who earned his law degree from Cornell Law School, Yellen recently was ranked seventh among the 25 most influential people in legal education by The National Jurist magazine, which called him “an innovator for his leadership in the national dialogue addressing today”™s challenges facing legal education.” The magazine also named Loyola University Chicago School of Law one of the nation”™s 10 best law schools for experiential learning during Yellen”™s tenure as dean.
Marist officials said he implemented online and other new degree programs, giving Loyola Chicago the highest enrollment of students in the country. Yellen also created the Dean”™s Diversity Council, which helped increase by more than 50 percent the number of students of color enrolled at the school.
Ellen Hancock, chairperson of the Marist board, in the school announcement called Yellen “one of the nation”™s top legal educators, an innovative leader highly respected among his peers, and a man of great integrity and commitment to public service. His work as a law school dean, a faculty member, and an attorney gives him a unique appreciation of the distinctive blend of the liberal arts and pre-professional programs that define the Marist experience and positions him well to lead the college to ever greater heights.”
Ross Mauri, the Marist trustee who headed the search committee, said committee members saw throughout Yellen”™s career as an educator and a lawyer “a mutually beneficial commitment to both student success and public service.”
Off campus, Yellen was specially appointed by the presiding judge of Cook County Criminal Division in Chicago to identify inmates who might be entitled to new trials after suffering torture by a former city police commander. Â He also serves on the Illinois Sentencing Policy Advisory Council and is a director of Cook County Justice for Children. Marist officials said he has written extensively on sentencing issues and served as an advisor on white-collar crime to President Bill Clinton’s transition team.
