Interim IU Maurer dean Ochoa takes reins of law school

For those working outside of academia, the job title of interim law school dean could prove misleading given the prefix.

While it’s true the position isn’t permanent, an interim dean isn’t just a placeholder. The interim dean is, in fact, the dean of the law school, taking on the authority of the most influential leadership position at the school.

Such is the current case at Indiana University Maurer School of Law in Bloomington.

On April 7, Austen Parrish announced he would be stepping down from his deanship at IU Maurer after more than eight years to take the same position at the University of California, Irvine School of Law. He was the 16th dean in IU Maurer’s history.

In response, first-year Provost and Executive Vice President Rahul Shrivastav — who began his duties on Feb. 15 — asked those closest to the law school who they thought should take on the dean’s responsibilities while a search commenced.

After receiving a unanimous recommendation from IU Maurer’s elected policy committee, the school’s board of visitors and senior staff leaders, Christiana Ochoa, executive associate dean at the law school, was selected for the interim deanship on April 27.

Ochoa — who is also the Class of 1950 Herman B Wells Endowed Professor at IU Maurer and founding academic director for the IU Mexico Gateway — has worked at the law school since 2003 in various leadership and teaching capacities.

Shrivastav said Ochoa came “highly recommended” by her colleagues, and “her experiences as a human rights attorney, corporate attorney, founding center director, professor and academic leader have prepared her for the complexities of this role.”

Ochoa officially became interim dean on July 1. She said she isn’t just the first Latina to hold a decanal title for IU Maurer, but she’s also the first person of color in that position.

The interim dean is being supported by a senior leadership team that includes Donna Nagy, who is stepping back into the interim executive associate dean role, which she has previously held twice, as well as professors Deborah Widiss and Ryan Scott, who will remain associate dean for research and faculty affairs and associate dean for academic affairs, respectively.

On June 9, Shrivastav’s office announced a committee had been formed for the dean search, with Kurt Zorn, IU Bloomington acting vice provost for undergraduate education, named chair. Shrivastav said he hopes to name a new dean by Oct. 1.

Refusing to ‘tread water’

Ochoa said Parrish “was still very much the dean up until the last day of being here” but helped her with the transition.

Comparing the dean and executive associate deanship positions, Ochoa said the executive associate dean has more internal than external-facing duties. She said the positions are the only two within the law school to make executive decisions.

“There wasn’t a lot of the operational side that I wasn’t well aware of by the time that I stepped into this role,” Ochoa said, “but (Parrish) was fabulous in helping to introduce me to our key alums and in transitioning our students to recognizing that I would be the interim dean and positioning me well externally, as well, with key organizations outside of the school that are important to legal education.”

The interim dean called her new position “exciting,” “fun” and “rewarding,” but also a little “daunting.” Ochoa noted that while she has worked at the law school for 19 years, she is learning how to navigate relationships a little differently in her new role.

Hannah Buxbaum, who is now IU’s vice president for international affairs, was the interim dean from 2012 to 2014 after Lauren Robel was appointed interim provost. Robel went on to serve as the provost and executive vice president until she stepped down in 2021.

Buxbaum, who was executive associate dean when she became interim dean, just like Ochoa, agreed the biggest differences in the jobs were the external responsibilities, such as communicating with the American Bar Association and the Association of American Law Schools. She said she has known Ochoa for many years and believes the current interim dean is “very knowledgeable” and will do a “fabulous job.”

Ochoa said she plans to fully act as the dean in her new role, but not make decisions that are going “to tie the hands of the next dean.” She gave the example of the law school undergoing a new strategic planning process and said she felt it would be unfair for her to make any major decisions on that right now — although she has started doing research and analyzing data to get the process started.

Relatedly, Ochoa did say she plans to make new hires in her interim role — possibly between three and five between tenure and nontenure track faculty — but that’s not uncommon. She herself was hired by an acting dean in 2002, as were other current members of IU Maurer’s faculty.

“When you are interim dean, it’s true that your title is interim dean, but there is no other dean,” Ochoa said. “And that is really important, both for the issues that come up that require ultimate decisions and also for guiding the school forward.

“And this is a school that has a lot of energy, it has a lot of fabulous programs,” she continued. “… If we just tread water with those programs, we are not doing our school service. It is a highly competitive legal academic market, and to just tread water would hurt us.”

Nearly 160 IU Maurer J.D. students and 40 graduate students were on campus last week for orientation, Ochoa said. While over 30% of the new J.D. class is from Indiana, the remainder of the incoming students are arriving from 28 states and every major region of the world, she noted.

On top of her deanship duties, Ochoa said she is also teaching a class this fall once per week.

She said she’s excited to get the semester started and feels confident in the leadership at the law school.

“Our alumni need to know that the law school is well cared for and that the stewardship of this law school is strong,” Ochoa said.

Search moving along

According to Zorn, the school didn’t hire an outside consulting firm in the national search for the new dean at IU Maurer due to timing. A normal academic hiring process generally starts in the fall and ends in the spring, he said.

The search for a new dean commenced by holding a series of meetings with IU Maurer’s board of visitors, alumni, students, staff and faculty to get an idea of what they were looking for, which helped form the job description, Zorn said.

Zorn said the search committee went through about a dozen applications last week and plans to narrow the list. The committee will then do a round of Zoom interviews before parsing the group down to three to five applicants by the second or third week of September, he said.

While the search committee can make recommendations to Shrivastav by Oct. 1, the provost can reject the recommendations and order a new search.•