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Drexel
Law Celebrates its New Name and Namesake |
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Drexel University leaders joined law students and law professors
in celebrating the newly renamed Earle Mack School of Law
during a gala ceremony on May 1.
Gov. Edward G. Rendell and former New York Gov. George Pataki
were among the luminaries who joined hundreds of law students,
professors and administrators in a champagne toast to the
school’s namesake, a former ambassador to Finland and
a 1959 Drexel alumnus.
The celebration, held across the street from the law school,
was attended by David Rudenstine, dean of the Benjamin N.
Cardozo School of Law, attorney Barry Scheck, co-founder
and co-director of the Innocence Project at Cardozo, and
Peter Martins, ballet master in chief of the New York City
Ballet.
The event honored Mack’s $15 million gift that will
be matched
with $15 million more in
new |
appropriations
and funds from Drexel and other donors to create an endowment that
will support the
law school.
“The endowment income from Ambassador Mack’s gift
will provide us with the resources to build a truly great and distinctive
law school,” Dean Roger Dennis said. “Our students,
our staff and our faculty are incredibly grateful to the ambassador
for his leadership and his contributions to our enterprise.”
 A successful businessman, diplomat and arts advocate, Mack
was senior partner of the Mack company, a prominent real-estate
development,
investment and management firm. After serving as chairman of
the New York State Racing Commission and the New York State
Council
on the Arts, he was appointed United States Ambassador Extraordinary
and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Finland. From 1980 to
2004, he held a seat on the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
board,
chairing the panel for 12 years.
 Rendell praised Mack’s commitment to community service.
“Ambassador Mack and the entire family are known for their
philanthropy, but not just their philanthropy, not just their willingness
to write checks for good causes, but their willingness to roll
up their sleeves to work and to lead by example,” Rendell
said. “This is a great day for the legal community, a great
day for the commonwealth and a great day for the city of Philadelphia.”
Pataki predicted Drexel and its law school will benefit from
the loyalty, passion and commitment to excellence that Mack
demonstrated through his public service in New York, his diplomacy
in Finland
and his leadership on Cardozo’s board.
 “I have 100 percent confidence that, in a very short time,
among the pantheon of great law schools in the United States of
America will be the Earle Mack School of Law at Drexel,” Pataki
said.
John R. Drexel IV, a descendant of university founder Anthony
J. Drexel, said the gift to the school was a natural outgrowth
of his longtime friend’s interests and passions.
“Earle always has been a person who’s drawn to challenge
and adventure,” Drexel said.
Mack, who earned letters on Drexel’s swim and baseball
teams and worked as an editor and columnist at The Triangle,
said a latent
fondness for his alma mater came to full flower as he realized
how his education affected his life.
“I sometimes didn’t realize how much my alma mater
meant to me. Now I do, and today, Mack is back,” he said. “My
Drexel education reinforced for me that public service and
philanthropy do make a difference. These were the lessons that
gave shape
to my career and meaning to my life. This was the moral compass
from
which I navigated through my life.”
Recalling the preliminary snickers elicited by Drexel’s
plans to open a college of law in 2006, President Constantine Papadakis
said the school’s swift progress validates that the university’s “bold
idea” was a good one.
 “Look at the caliber of students and faculty our law school
has attracted,” Papadakis said. “Look at Roger Dennis,
our dean. Look at our more than 100 co-op partners. Look at the
respect from the American Bar Association, which gave Drexel
Law provisional accreditation in 18 months, the shortest time
possible.”
Jacqueline Lowthert, president of the Earle Mack School of
Law Student Bar Association and a second-year student, offered
gratitude
to Mack on behalf of her classmates.
“In addition to a financial investment, Ambassador Mack
has invested his name and his reputation in the students at
Drexel Law,” Lowthert said. “This generous gift represents
his confidence in all of us. And I have no doubt that we will
live up to our namesake and make Ambassador Mack proud.”
To find out more about Ambassador Earle Mack, click HERE.
To read a press release about the Earle Mack School of Law, click HERE. |
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