University of Maryland officials last week announced the appointment of Phoebe A. Haddon as dean of the University of Maryland School of Law, effective July 1, 2009. Haddon, who will be the ninth dean and the second woman in the position, will be the first African-American to serve as the dean of the University of Maryland system’s only law school.

“Phoebe Haddon is passionate about legal education, about the essential role of innovative and influential scholarship in the continued development of our faculty, and about the School of Law’s vital public service mission,” says Dr. David J. Ramsay, the president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

Haddon is leaving the faculty of the Temple University Beasley School of Law to head the 185-year old Baltimore-based law school, replacing Karen H. Rothenberg. The first woman to serve as dean, Rothenberg is stepping down after a decade in the Maryland law deanship and is rejoining the faculty as a professor. Haddon’s selection as dean follows a year-long national search that began not long after Rothenberg announced in February 2008 that she would be stepping down from her post in 2009.

Haddon noted that Maryland’s law school has a history of promoting social justice through its clinical programs and community outreach. And she lauded the institution’s teaching and student mentoring in areas such as health care, the environment, business and international law.

“The faculty’s talents are revealed in its scholarship and in the problem-solving and policy-making efforts it undertakes at the local, state and national level. I want to assist the faculty, fundraising for the resources to support this important work and strengthening their opportunities to be effective scholars and teachers,” Haddon told Diverse.