Diane Ring will become interim dean of the Boston College Law School on July 1 upon the departure of current Dean Vincent Rougeau, the next president of the College of the Holy Cross, according to BC Law Magazine.
“I was very excited to be asked to serve as interim Dean for the Law School,” Ring wrote in an email to The Heights. “Law and legal education play an incredibly important role in society, which events and challenges of recent years have dramatically highlighted.”
Ring, who currently serves as associate dean of faculty at BC Law, said that she looks forward to continuing to familiarize students with the legislative, regulatory, judicial, and policy spheres of the legal world in her new position.
“This reality guides us in designing our educational program, teaching our students, helping them identify their paths post graduation, and engaging directly with the legislative, regulatory, judicial, and policy spheres both in the United States and globally,” Ring wrote. “I look forward to spending the coming year working with students and colleagues at the law school in continuing to further our efforts on all of these fronts.”
Ring has spent over 15 years at BC Law, having served previously as associate dean of academic affairs.
Ring praised how engaged BC Law students are when trying to understand complicated concepts.
“BC Law’s students are curious, thoughtful, and interested in understanding the law and the intersecting policies at a sophisticated level,” she wrote.
Before entering academia, Ring practiced law in the public sector, specializing in international tax and the taxation of financial instruments. Ring also clerked in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Ring said Rougeau’s contributions to the University will be greatly missed, as he has made a major contribution to legal education, the law school, and the University as a whole.
“His work as the Director of the Boston College Forum on Racial Justice in America has been central in helping students and the university not only process longstanding issues of race in our country that have played out in stark ways in recent years, but also in charting a path for how individuals, institutions, and the nation meaningfully pursue change,” Ring wrote.
After Rougeau’s departure, Ring said, BC Law will continue to address diversity, equity, and inclusion issues within the space of the school.
“Clearly this work is ongoing, and will form an important part of the coming years at the law school and the university as we move forward through the law school’s momentous centennial decade,” she wrote.
Rougeau said Ring’s selection makes him more confident as he leaves his position of dean.
“Although it will be difficult for me in many ways to leave such a wonderful community, I am heartened by the fact that this school is in a very strong position as we prepare to celebrate BC Law’s centennial in 2029,” Rougeau said to BC Law Magazine.
A meaningful aspect of Ring’s years at BC, she said, has been helping students forge paths in the legal world.
“As an educator I have really appreciated the opportunity to help students find their path in the law,” she wrote. “Often a path they had not yet seen for themselves.”
Photo Courtesy of Diane Ring
