Appointment of Dean for Rutgers Law School

March 23, 2023

Dear University Colleagues, 

After a successful national search, we are pleased to announce that we will be appointing Professor Johanna Bond, an accomplished academic leader and legal scholar, as the new Dean of Rutgers Law School, effective July 3, 2023, following Board of Governors approval.

Professor Bond, a New Jersey native, will join Rutgers after holding an Endowed Chair role of Sydney and Frances Lewis Professor of Law and previously as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the School of Law at Washington and Lee University.  She also serves as an Affiliate Faculty Member in the Africana Studies and the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies programs at Washington and Lee.  Her experience there also includes chairing the Sub-Committee on Diversity and Inclusion on the President’s Strategic Planning Steering Committee; serving on the Presidential and Provost search committees; and restructuring the first-year curriculum and redesigning a new first-year legal writing program.

As a tenured professor, Bond’s scholarship focuses on women’s rights in sub-Saharan Africa, women’s rights within the United Nations, and the application of critical race feminism in the context of human rights. Her most recent book with Oxford University Press, Global Intersectionality and Contemporary Human Rights, is the culmination of more than two decades of scholarship related to intersectionality in global human rights.  She is a recipient of the Lewis Prize for Excellence in Legal Scholarship and the Ethan Allen Faculty Award for Scholarship, and she was twice named a Fulbright Scholar.

An accomplished legal scholar and a strong academic administrator, Professor Bond is supremely qualified to serve as the inaugural dean of Rutgers University Law School, across the institution and on each campus. She brings an intellectual trajectory that complements the scholarly focus of law faculty in Camden and Newark, including publicly-engaged legal and interdisciplinary scholarship. Further, she is committed to a student-centric approach to legal education, a focus on civically engaged and experiential learning, and the role of the Law School as an anchor institution in Newark and Camden.

We are grateful to the stewardship of the search committee, led by co-chairs Rachel Godsil and J.C. Lore III, for their exemplary service and commitment to the institution.  We, and they, are also fortunate to have relied on so many faculty, staff, students, and alumni, who shared their aspirations for the school’s leadership and their feedback throughout the search process.  

We are grateful to our current co-deans, Kimberly Mutcherson and Rose Cuison-Villazor, for being such exceptional leaders for Rutgers Law School’s Camden and Newark locations, respectively. 

Kim Mutcherson has ably served on the faculty of the Camden Law program for more than 20 years, a period during which she served as Vice Dean or Co-Dean for nearly eight years.   She has been instrumental in attracting strong faculty to Rutgers Law and working with the faculty on innovative curricular expansion. She has elevated the visibility of Rutgers Law through her national awards in the legal education space.

Rose Cuison-Villazor has served most recently as Interim Co-Dean, Professor of Law, and Chancellor's Social Justice Scholar at Rutgers-Newark and as Director of the Rutgers Center for Immigration Law, Policy and Justice.  As co-dean, she has excelled in recruiting superb faculty, supporting innovative research centers, and building pre-law pathways to spread interest in the law in our community. We express our deep gratitude to both our co-deans.

In Johanna Bond, we have identified an academic leader who is committed to working with the entire Rutgers Law School community to elevate the School to national prominence as well as amplifying the aspirations of the two locations. She is a dynamic leader whose skills and energy will focus on building on existing strengths and working with faculty, staff, students, and alumni to further define the Law School’s identity and to chart its path forward.  Upon her appointment, Dean Bond will participate in the deans’ councils on both campuses and report to all three of us, as well as serve on the President’s administrative council.

Please join us as we welcome Dean Bond to the Law School and to Rutgers University.

Prabhas Moghe
Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs

Nancy Cantor
Chancellor, Rutgers University–Newark

Antonio Tillis
Chancellor, Rutgers University–Camden