Mark Gordon has started work as president and dean of the William Mitchell College of Law, replacing Eric Janus, who has returned to the school’s faculty.
Gordon, has been president of Defiance College, a private Ohio liberal-arts college, for the past six years.
He will become president and dean of the new Mitchell-Hamline School of Law, when that pending merger is complete, expected to be completed in December.
Gordon said: “I think there is a tremendous tradition at Mitchell and at Hamline that I am honored to be able to carry on, but I also think people are really poised to think in some pretty creative ways, and I can’t wait to get started.”
He said he’s looking forward to the merger: “It takes two really, really strong institutions which have tremendous individual strengths and puts them together in a way so that, as one, we’re going to be able to compete on a national level in a way that neither institution could do separately.”
Gordon has also been dean of the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law and was an associate professor in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, general deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and an aide to former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo.
Gordon graduated magna cum laude with a juris doctor from Harvard Law School. He holds a master’s degree in international affairs and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Columbia University.
