Dear Tulane Community:

We are thrilled to announce that Marcilynn Burke, who is the current dean of law and the Dave Frohnmayer Chair in Leadership and Law at the University of Oregon and a former acting assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of the Interior, has been named dean of the Tulane School of Law, effective August 5.

Marcilynn specializes in property, land use and environmental and natural resources law – as well as other areas that are strategic priorities for Tulane's law school. She has published extensively in leading law reviews. Marcilynn earned her bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She earned her juris doctorate from Yale Law School, where she was an editor of both the Yale Journal of International Law and the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism.

After law school, Marcilynn clerked for the Honorable Raymond A. Jackson of the Eastern District of Virginia and later joined the law firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton where her practice focused on environmental law, antitrust and civil and criminal litigation. She also served as a visiting professor of law at Rutgers School of Law in 2001.

In 2002, Marcilynn joined the law faculty at University of Houston. From 2009 to 2013, she served in the U.S. Department of the Interior. Initially she was deputy director for programs and policy for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and then was appointed acting assistant secretary for land and minerals management for the department by President Barack Obama. In the latter role, she helped develop the land use, resource management and regulatory oversight policies administered by the BLM, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement and the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.

Following her term at the Department of the Interior, Marcilynn returned to the University of Houston Law Center as an associate professor of law and later served as associate dean. Known for her engaging personality and rapport with students and colleagues alike, she was named professor of the year by the Law Center's Black Law Students Association. In 2017 she was appointed dean of the University of Oregon's law school, where she has been hailed as an ambitious, focused and strategic leader. She also currently serves as the chair of the board of trustees for the Law School Admission Council.

During her tenure at Oregon, she increased fundraising and strengthened ties with alumni, which supported expansion of areas of excellence in business law and experiential learning. She grew the enrollment of Oregon Law's talented and diverse student body and recruited and retained distinguished faculty and staff members, positioning the school on the path of financial sustainability and academic excellence. She also enhanced student support, leading to improved bar passage rates and job placement success.

Marcilynn's long service and expertise in academia, private practice and government service set her apart from the list of remarkable candidates identified through our national search. We want to thank Steve Griffin, W.R. Irby Chair and Rutledge C. Clement Jr. Professor in Constitutional Law, for chairing the search committee and bringing us such amazing candidates. We are indebted to Sally Richardson, the A.D. Freeman Professor of Civil Law, for serving as interim dean since May and for continuing to serve as we transition to new leadership.

Please join us in welcoming Dean Marcilynn Burke to New Orleans and to Tulane University.

Michael A. Fitts
President, Tulane University

Robin Forman, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost