Meet Villanova's first African American law school dean; he advised Obama

Mark C. Alexander, named Friday as the new dean of Villanova University's Charles Widger School of Law, has had a long and varied career as a law school administrator and scholar, a litigator, and even a political adviser and candidate.

He served at one time as senior adviser for President Obama's 2008 presidential election campaign, and once ran for office - unsuccessfully, in the Democratic primary for the New Jersey Senate in 2013. He has been widely published, and is known as an expert on the First Amendment.

"I have been in legal academia for 20 years now and . . . I feel like I have had a career that has led me to the point where I would be well-positioned to take on a position of leadership," he said.

Villanova's announcement of Alexander's appointment ended a months-long search. He will be the university's first African American law school dean when he officially assumes the role on July 1. He now serves as associate dean for academics at the Seton Hall University School of Law, where he also is a professor.

Alexander, 51, has been a member of the Seton Hall law faculty for two decades. He has focused on constitutional law, criminal procedure, election law, and other subjects.

"Mark Alexander brings tremendous academic and practical skills to his new role as dean," said Villanova president the Rev. Peter M. Donohue. "Our search centered on finding an individual who understands the changing landscape of the legal industry, believes in the values of Villanova's Augustinian Catholic tradition, and has the breadth of experience to sustain . . . the law school's forward momentum."

Alexander replaces John Yukio Gotanda, who announced this year that he would be leaving to become president of Hawaii Pacific University in Honolulu.

Gotanda, who taught law for more than a decade at Villanova and held administrative posts before being named dean in 2011, took over during a time of upheaval and trauma. Soon after he was named dean, the school disclosed that admissions data for incoming students had been falsified for an undetermined number of years, in an apparent bid to raise the school's position in the U.S. News & World Report rankings.

Gotanda had nothing to do with the admissions scandal, and was instrumental in cleaning it up.

In addition to his extensive teaching career, Alexander has authored several books on the First Amendment, and written for scholarly journals. He is married and has five children ranging in age from 8 to 22.

Alexander also is a college basketball fan and noted in an interview that Villanova is the perfect perch from which to pursue this pastime.

Alexander said the central issue facing legal educators in recent years has been declining applications and enrollment, brought on by reduced law-firm hiring. But he said there are signs that employment has begun to improve for newly minted graduates.

"I think that Villanova has made the necessary adjustment, and that has positioned the school very well for the future," Alexander said.

Villanova's focus on providing students with basic training in business subjects in addition to their legal education will only make its graduates more competitive in the job market, he said.

"You have to understand how the business [of a client] works," he said. "If you can't read a balance sheet, that becomes a problem."

Alexander clerked for Chief Judge Thelton Henderson of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, and was a litigator with the firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in San Francisco. He earned both his undergraduate degree and his law degree from Yale University.

He said that he had begun the search for a home near Villanova.

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