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On Thursday, the University of Idaho appeared before the State Board of Education and received approval for the proposed extension of the College of Law.
Although the university was given board approval to continue the implementation planning process for a Boise location, they voted to cut four lines from the original proposal limiting any actual operations.
“Traditionally you don’t come asking for the State Board to approve a concept without an operating budget or a capital budget,” said Blake Hale, a committee chair. “Before we can approve this concept we need additional information.”
The board voiced a series of concerns regarding the proposal including how resources between the two locations would be allocated. According to Don Burnett, dean of the college of law, the Boise law school would be an extension of UI, while the Moscow location would remain primary.
“Moscow must remain the center of a unified campus,” he said.
It was the original hope of the university that upon approval, the Boise location would be developed as soon as possible with operations beginning as early as fall 2009. Instead the Board approved, “… the request by the University of Idaho for authority to proceed with implementation planning for the two-location concept, including operating budget, capital budget, facility needs analysis, curriculum and an implementation timeline.”
The university will return to the board for review and approval of an implementation plan when it is fully developed.
President Tim White agreed with the Board’s decision to remove the first item on the proposal and said the university wanted to do whatever was necessary to make their position clear.
“What we’re looking for is recognition that this concept has validity in your minds. That was the intent,” he said.
The College of Law has researched, analyzed and discussed this move for the past 18 months. Discussions have included faculty, current and prospective students, distinguished lawyers and judges on the College of Law Advisory Council.
Burnett said that the law school is a priority for the university and as a land grant school it has a certain responsibility to ensure the state’s educational needs are met.
“A law school in Boise is beneficial both to the University of Idaho and the city as a whole,” he said. “Most of our lawyers come from schools out of state. It doesn’t have to be that way.”
He referred to “the Idaho model of legal education” and said that with the state’s expected growth there was a need to train its own lawyers. Currently, the majority of Idaho’s law graduates come from Spokane law schools.
The board’s decision follows news that Concordia University, a private Lutheran school in Portland Ore., intends to move forward with its own plans to open a law school in Boise.
Concordia’s regents approved the Boise location Wednesday and authorized Concordia President Charles Schlimpert to search for a dean who would lead the planning and operation of the new school. Schlimpert says a final proposal and details for a Boise program could be submitted to the regents for approval in July.
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