The door to the School of Law’s dean’s office will have a new name on it next fall, as Jonathan Varat steps down from a five-year stint at the position.
According to a letter Varat addressed to colleagues, his decision to resign comes after a review of his tenure as dean that included “gratifying praise by many and blunt reservations by some who appear to prefer a change in the course of my administration.”
Varat called his decision “sudden and unanticipated, though considered.”
But colleagues – some of whom have known Varat since he joined UCLA’s faculty in 1976, won’t be waving goodbye just yet.
Varat will serve as dean until the end of August before returning to full-time teaching and writing at UCLA, said Jessica Copen, director of communications at the School of Law.
Varat said he will assist in the process of selecting new leadership, which has not yet begun.
Colleagues said Varat’s personal involvement in hiring faculty members during his deanship is among his contributions to the School of Law.
“He hired a whole bunch of really talented professors, adding tremendous talent and luster to our faculty,” said David Sklansky, professor of law and associate dean at the School of Law.
During Varat’s tenure as dean, the law school hired an average of three to four new faculty members each year.
Richard Sander, a law professor who has known Varat since 1989, said Varat stood “above the fray” when appointment and admissions decisions divided the faculty.
“We’ve had various disputes about those things. He tried to be a fair mediator between different factions,” he said.
As dean, Varat oversaw a law school struggling with budget cuts, and played a key role in expanding the law school’s fundraising and developing office to keep the school “financially healthy going into some very, very difficult budget times,” Sklansky said.
Law Professor Jody Freeman attributes the school’s ability to weather the UC system’s budget crisis, in part, to Varat’s efforts.
“He’s been ... a leader for the professional schools when dealing with the prospect of budget cuts,” she said.
And, in light of sharply declining minority enrollment, colleagues credit Varat with working to keep the portrait of the law school’s student body from being predominantly white.
Varat oversaw the School of Law’s aggressive implementation of outreach programs to attract minority students, as well as the creation of a critical race studies concentration for law students.
Sklansky said Varat “enriched the intellectual life of the law school,” helping to establish “a number of intellectual projects” including the Williams Project on Sexual Orientation Law.
“He worked tirelessly for the law school throughout his deanship, as he had before he was dean,” Sklansky said.
In his letter to colleagues, Varat said his dedication to the School of Law will not end with the resignation of his deanship.
“I look forward to our future years together, and I remain profoundly committed to making an already great institution greater still,” he wrote.