Indiana Law Review Jeffrey W. Grove Indiana Law Review Volume 41 2008 Number 2 TRIBUTES Jeffrey W. Grove Tribute Gerald L. Bepko* The Indiana University School of Law—Indianapolis began as an independent private school of law in 1894 and served in that mode fifty years, mostly under the name Indiana Law School. As planning began for the aftermath of World War II, it seemed clear that returning veterans would increase law school enrollments, particularly in population centers such as Indianapolis. To accommodate these anticipated enrollments, Indiana University absorbed the Indiana Law School in 1944 and proceeded to operate it as the part-time program of the Indiana University School of Law based in Bloomington. Twenty-five years later, in the early stages of another nationwide increase in law school enrollments, Indiana University created a separate Indiana University School of Law at Indianapolis and in 1970 opened a new home for the School at 735 West New York Street on the IUPUI campus. The years following the completion of the 1970 building were very important in the history of the School, not only because of the new organizational arrangements and increases in student enrollments, but also because of the expansion of the faculty. Many new faculty were recruited in those years from 1970 to 1972. Six of those faculty—Tom Allington, Ed Archer, Paul Galanti, Jeff Grove, Ken Stroud, and Jim Torke—stayed the entire length of their careers until retirement. These faculty members formed a nucleus of stalwarts who served in various ways to lead the School and define the School's culture. While I joined the faculty in 1972, 1 don't count myself among these special colleagues who served so long and with such constancy to build the School because I left the School for seventeen years to serve in the University's administration. This "expansion cohort" of faculty served the School an average of thirty- four years and in totality have served more than 200 years. All have led projects of various kinds as well as key committees such as Student Affairs, Curriculum, and Appointments. Three of the six have served as Associate Deans for a total of twenty-six years in that role. One of this group, Jeff Grove, served eleven years as Associate Dean and eighteen months as Acting Dean, not only making a major contribution to the growth and development of the School, but also making an important impact on my life which I am pleased to have the opportunity to explain. * Former Interim President of Indiana University; IUPUI Chancellor Emeritus, Indiana University Trustees Professor and Professor Law; former Dean of the Indiana University School of Law—Indianapolis. 274 INDIANA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 41 :273 Jeff began as a faculty member in 1971, fresh from a clerkship in the chambers of Judge Ruggero Aldisert of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Before clerking he studied law with a Legal Research Fellowship and a Trustees Scholarship at George Washington University where he graduated with honors. He was the Notes Editor of the George Washington Law Review and won the School's Outstanding Law Review Note Award. Upon his arrival at our Law School, Jeff was quickly embraced and became a prominent member of the new faculty. From the very start he was a fine classroom teacher, simultaneously friendly with students, but demanding; thoughtful, but skillful with his use of subtle humor. Students identified with him in many ways and flocked to his classes in subjects that don't ordinarily attract large enrollments. It's not surprising that Jeff was a good teacher from his earliest days on the faculty because he had some teaching experience and an excellent mentor even before he arrived in Indiana. While a clerk he helped Judge Aldisert teach a course on Federal Jurisdiction at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Jeff continued to teach Federal Jurisdiction throughout his career and also continued his association with the University of Pittsburgh through his now twenty-year membership on their School of Law Board of Visitors. As a new member of our Law School faculty he not only performed well professionally, but he stood out for another reason. The Law School was a pretty conservative place in those days, at least in terms of the appearance and habits of faculty. In part because of its location near the courts and law firms, the School's senior faculty looked a little like law firm partners. They wore white shirts, suits or sports jackets, and ties. Many senior faculty came to their offices, in ever so slightly more casual clothes, on Saturday mornings—a pattern observed in many law firms of that era. In contrast, Jeff brought with him an upscale version of the sartorial and coiffure trends of the 1960s. Some senior faculty viewed him as something of an alien cultural icon of the turbulent 1960s, but because of his sophistication and portfolio of talents, he was readily accepted and actually contributed to a healthy evolution of School customs. Students also noticed his appearance and demeanor. Starting with a group of African American students he accompanied to a conference in Michigan, his underground name among students, coined with considerable affection, was "Cool Breeze." Among his faculty colleagues he also was an athlete of some standing, at least with respect to the three annual touch football games played between the students and the faculty in the 1970s. Somewhere there is an eight millimeter film taken by a student of Jeff's spectacular catch of a long pass which produced the winning touchdown in that year' s faculty-student game. It was such a memorable gridiron moment that it has since been referred to as simply "The Catch." A decade after Jeff arrived, and a year or two after Jeff had been promoted to full professor with tenure, a series of unanticipated events changed both of our lives. In March 198 1 , toward the end of the academic year, Dean Tom Read, for whom I served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, was lured away to be the Dean at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. Indiana University leaders concluded that the 1981-82 academic year would be devoted to a search for Tom's successor, and I accepted the role of Acting Dean. One of my first 2008] JEFFREY W. GROVE TRIBUTE 275 thoughts was that we needed someone from the faculty to serve as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. After consultation with faculty colleagues, I decided to ask Jeff if he would be willing to serve. He had many positive leadership qualities; he was well liked and highly regarded by our faculty colleagues; he understood quality in academic programs; and he had timely experience as a visiting professor at another law school, giving him an important perspective that derives from working in different faculty contexts. In 1979-80 he spent a year as a visiting professor at the University of Idaho College of Law. Nearly a decade later, after seven years in the Dean's offices, Jeff returned there for the spring term in 1988. Not long thereafter, in 1990, Jeff followed a few other members of the Law School faculty in serving as a visiting professor at the University of Illinois College of Law in Urbana-Champaign. Jeff graciously agreed to serve as Acting Associate Dean, and this began a period of five years during which Jeff and I worked very closely together for a year in an acting capacity and four years as Associate Dean and Dean. We were joined in the administration by our dear departed colleague Associate Dean G. Kent Frandsen, who was responsible for student affairs. We often worked as a trio, and there was a special sense of teamwork among us. Because Jeffs area of responsibility was Academic Affairs—where both of our attentions were concentrated—Jeff and I worked especially closely together to cover all the many responsibilities of an ambitious law program. One such responsibility was the sabbatical ABA/AALS accreditation visit in 1981 through which we thought we should make a special effort to show our enthusiasm for the process. Because the School's administration was serving in an "acting" capacity, and because a member of our faculty was the leader of the ABA accreditation office, we wanted to make the most compelling case to show how aggressively the School was pursuing a strong academic vision as well as full compliance with ABA/AALS standards. Because we had a tiny staff, Kent Frandsen, Jeff, and I threw ourselves into this work and tried to be everywhere and do everything to help the visitors understand our growing program quality. The late Steve Frankino, then Dean of the Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law and the chair of the ABA/AALS Visitation Team, noticed this and several times remarked in a playful way about the energy of the people in the Dean's office. In one of our meetings, he described Jeff and me as the "Dynamic Duo," referring to how many places and causes in which we personally interjected ourselves. Dean Frankino allowed, however, that he wasn't sure who was Batman. He suspected that Jeff, as the younger of us, was Robin, but this meant that Batman was the shorter of the duo, in conflict with the lore of Gotham. Jeff was especially capable in the role of Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and handled most of the issues so smoothly that these years comprised a quiescent, productive period. Faculty were hard at work teaching and making an impact in their fields at least in part because Jeff was good at providing just the right encouragement, helping colleagues to envision their futures, to develop plans to increase their impact, and to move to higher levels of achievement. In 1985-86 Indiana University Vice President Glenn W. Irwin, M.D., head of Indiana University's Indianapolis campus (IUPUI), announced his retirement. 276 INDIANA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 4 1 :273 In the summer of 1986 1 became his successor (later assuming the additional title of Chancellor). One of my first tasks as Vice President/Chancellor Designate, even before I had formally moved to my new office, was to discuss with faculty and then see to the appointment of an Acting Dean at the Law School. Jeff was the obvious choice. Jeff had been an excellent Associate Dean and had the confidence of the faculty, an indispensable ingredient in an Acting Deanship. Another reason was the work he had done in ABA/AALS accreditation visits. As I mentioned earlier the person who led the ABA office for accreditation was a member of the faculty. This is Dean James P. White, another long-serving member of the School's faculty whose initial appointment preceded the 1970 expansion. For nearly thirty years he was the Consultant on Legal Education for the American Bar Association and was responsible for the ABA/AALS accreditation process. Thus it was not unusual for members of the faculty to be tapped for slots on Visitation Teams. This experience gave faculty members important insights about legal education that was good preparation for dean's work. Jeff was a member of the Visitation Teams for the University of Washington School of Law in 1982 and Arizona State University College of Law in 1985, providing good background for his 1986 assumption of the Acting Dean's role. Jeff has kept up his work in this arena, later serving on the 1989 visitation of the University of Florida Levin College of Law and chairing the 1991 team for the City University of New York Law School at Queens College. Finally, he was a member of the ABA Team that visited the Temple University Beasley School of Law Masters of Law (LL.M.) program at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing in 2000. In partnership with Jim Torke, another outstanding expansion cohort colleague who served as Acting Associate Dean (and I'm told was explicitly assigned to the role of Robin), Jeff served for eighteen months as Acting Dean in superb fashion. The most accurate comment I saw about how well Jeff served came from an alumna who served as a professor at a well-known private university as well as a judge in the state courts of Indiana. In writing to Jeff she said: What I truly congratulate you for is that you not only "held your own" in the position as dean, you really did leave your own mark by your special brand of good humor, grace, and competence. I know you're looking forward to returning full time to the classroom—where your talents are legend—but I hope you will look back on your administrative activities with well-deserved pride and satisfaction. As a natural leader of the faculty and as someone with experience in deaning, Jeff could have served well as a permanent dean, here in Indianapolis or elsewhere, but from the very beginning he made it clear that he had other plans for his future. At the top of his list was to explore international and comparative law and to extend the reach of the Law School to China. His interest in China began when we were invited by Columbia University School of Law Professor R. Randle Edwards, in his role as Chair of the Committee for Legal Education Exchanges with China, to host a Chinese 2008] JEFFREY W. GROVE TRIBUTE 277 Professor for the 1984-85 academic year. We agreed with enthusiasm and Professor Wang Qun of the East China School of Political Science and Law in Shanghai arrived in the fall term 1984. This visit launched Jeffs, and our Law School's, long and productive relationships in China. As Jeff was nearing the end of his term as Acting Dean, shortly after the commencement ceremony in 1987, he wrote a Dean's message in the School's Alumni publication which said: As I write this message, I am prepared to embark upon a journey to the People's Republic of China to inaugurate the Law School's China summer program at the East China Institute of Politics and Law in Shanghai. . . . [This] is our first foreign law offering. It reflects our school's continuing interest in providing a broadly gauged and innovative instructional program. That statement was prophetic. The School's international activities have grown exponentially so that now there are many opportunities for American law students to study in programs in other parts of the world, especially China, and there are many programs at the School which attract international students. These latter programs began with an LL.M. degree in American Law for Foreign Lawyers, but there are now four additional LL.M. tracks and a program that leads to the degree of Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD). Nearly all these international activities and the School's impressive array of graduate degrees, attracting both international and domestic students, have been spawned by Jeff in his six years as Associate Dean for Graduate Studies (2001-2007) and his overlapping fifteen years of service as the Director of the School's China summer program (1990-2005). In the course of being the leader of this internationalizing of the School, Jeff has spent much time overseas and has been a frequent lecturer in China. Since 1998, he has carried the title of honorary Professor of Law at the Renmin (People's) University of China School of Law in Beijing. Back home he serves as Chair of the Board of Faculty Advisors of the Indiana International and Comparative Law Review, as a Board member of the School's Center for International and Comparative Law—a Center that has attracted very accomplished new faculty to build on the foundation Jeff created, and as a Senior Associate of the Indiana University Research Center for Chinese Politics and Business—a new center directed by a faculty member in the nationally acclaimed East Asian studies program in Bloomington, which will combine faculty from various disciplines in Bloomington and Indianapolis. When I returned to Inlow Hall to occupy an office as a retiree from the University Administration, the thing that was most striking to me, even more than the School's new building, was the international flavor that now pervades the School. International students are numerous, and there is evidence of their presence everywhere, in classrooms, in the lounges, on bulletin boards, in the curriculum, and in the School's notable achievements. One of the first persons I met when I arrived back at the School was European law scholar Frank Emmert, the Director of the Center for International and Comparative Law, whose presence is an important symbol of the School's commitments and achievements in these important fields. 278 INDIANA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 41 :273 Jeff Grove has led this part of the School's growth in the third season of his career. In the first season, during the 1970s, he was a young teacher of great promise who was given nicknames by the students. In the 1980s, in the second season, he was a dean and provided leadership for the management of the School. From 1990 until this year, he has used the experience of the first two seasons to encourage a new and important feature of the School and our University. In retirement I am proud to be back at the Law School, which is now immeasurably stronger than when I left and is led today in promising fashion by our excellent new Dean, Gary Roberts. I am proud to use an office and teach a course amongst the friends who have led the School and the superb newer faculty so many of whom were recruited during Norm Lefstein's stellar deanship. I am proud to be back just in time to join in recognizing as they retire the wonderful work of dear friends in the 1970-72 expansion cohort. I am especially proud to see up close the product of Jeff Grove's third season as a leader within our School. When I left the School for the University Administration in 1986, 1 wrote a handwritten note to Jeff which said, "I've never worked as closely with anyone, appreciated a colleague more, or had a better friend than you have been these past five years. I will miss our 'team' very much and hope that we can recreate it again at some point for some new task." Twenty-one years later, it has been an especially satisfying experience to look at Jeffs third season of contributions to the School, to be reminded of the sentiments reflected in that handwritten note, and to write this Tribute to him as he joins Tom Allington as the last of the expansion cohort to retire.