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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CU MAKING HISTORY IN LEGAL EDUCATION

University of Colorado Law School prepares for move to new Wolf Law Building; Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to deliver keynote address

BOULDER, Colo.-The Colorado Law School will officially dedicate the new Wolf Law Building on the University of Colorado at Boulder campus on September 8, 2006. Never before has an entire campus student body voted to tax themselves to build a new law school because of a lack of financial support from the state. The Law School announces that Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer will attend the dedication and deliver the keynote address.

"History is being made with the opening of the new building," said Dean David Getches. "The Wolf Law Building will be a source of pride for everyone associated with Colorado Law for generations to come. It is a monument to the determination and generosity of those who made it possible, and its technologically advanced classrooms and courtrooms, and gracious public areas will further our mission of providing the excellent legal education to our students."

In 2003, Colorado Law students successfully worked with the student government to create a $400-per-year student fee that fully replaced the $21 million that the legislature rescinded in the wake of Colorado's fiscal crisis. This fee will provide a total of $100 million for capital construction on the Boulder campus. Sixty percent of the cost of the Wolf Law Building is being provided by students.

The move to the Wolf Law Building will take place over two weeks beginning July 28, 2006. The new building will be a state-of-the art educational facility. It will foster active civic engagement with the community and will better prepare the legal community of tomorrow.

Colorado Law is among the nation's 25 top-ranked public law schools and among the 10 top-ranked law schools in the West. It is ranked 4th in the nation for environmental and natural resources law.

WOLF LAW BUILDING AT UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO FACT SHEET

The students and faculty of the University of Colorado School of Law are engaged in preparing for the future through responsible involvement and participation in the real world institutions of government, law and society that impact our American way of life. · The dedication of the Wolf Law Building will occur on September 8, 2006, and will feature Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and CU Law alumnus Karen Mathis, the president of the American Bar Association.

  • The total cost of Wolf Law Building is $46.3 million. Sixty percent of this cost will be paid for by students. No other known major building on the Boulder campus or at any other university has been built with this level of student support.

  • In 1997, Colorado Law students voted to pay $1,000 additional tuition to be dedicated to paying for a new building.

  • In 2003, Colorado Law students successfully worked with the student government in creating a $400-per-year student fee to replace the $21 million that the legislature rescinded in the wake of Colorado's fiscal crisis.

  • The fee will provide a total of $100 million for capital construction on the Boulder campus and construction of the ATLAS building an addition to the Business School, a new Fine Arts Building and information technology infrastructure throughout the campus.

  • The law school received nearly $18 million in private gifts, most notably a $3 million donation from the Wolf family.

  • Twenty percent of the student fee will go toward financial aid to help students who would have a hard time affording increased fees. One percent of the construction funds will go toward environmentally friendly features, such as the use of renewable energy in the buildings.

About the building

  • At 180,000 square feet, the Wolf Law Building will enable Colorado Law to grow, recruit top faculty and promote its nationally recognized centers and clinical programs.

  • Students will benefit from a state-of-the-art classroom environment. Wireless networking, distance learning capacity, and audio-visual equipment will be available to facilitate the use of technology.

  • The Wolf Law Building will house two high-tech courtrooms. The Wittemyer Courtroom will be a venue for symposia, class meetings, conferences, court proceedings of state and federal courts and large gatherings. It will also host actual sessions of state, federal, and tribal appellate courts. The Carrigan Teaching Courtroom will be used for classes, moot court competitions, and training in litigation. Both will feature leading-edge videotaping and distance-learning capabilities.

  • The space dedicated to Colorado Law's centers of excellence, such as the Byron R. White Center for the Study of Constitutional Law, the Natural Resources Law Center, the Silicon Flatirons Telecommunications Program, and the Energy and Environmental Security Initiative, will double in the new building creating room for new centers and emerging programs. Space for clinical programs will grow by 40 percent. Law journal offices will double and student services space will expand by nearly 50 percent.

  • The new law library will be the most comprehensive and technologically advanced in the 12-state Rocky Mountain region. Colorado Law will serve as a center for legal research at a time when many other law schools are reducing their library investment. It is also the regional archive for the United States government (making it the most complete law library in Colorado.)

  • In keeping with an outstanding national reputation for environmental law, the Wolf Law building is being constructed to the exacting standards of the U.S. Green Building Council's "Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design" (LEED) building certification, including water conservation (39 percent less indoor water usage than a conventional building); energy efficiency (100 percent renewable energy and electricity); environmentally safe, locally produced materials; waste recycling (more than 50 percent of construction waste recycled); indoor air quality control; and multiple innovations in design.

CUTTING-EDGE TECHNOLOGY ENHANCES NEW WOLF LAW BUILDING

BOULDER-Gone are the days of professors simply using a chalk board and textbook. The new Wolf Law Building at the University of Colorado will feature cutting-edge technology to support teaching and research at Colorado Law.

"We are very proud to now be able to provide our students and faculty with one of the most technologically advanced law schools in the country," said Professor Scott Peppet, the Chair of the Law School's Technology Committee. "This will provide our students with the best learning environment and an opportunity for the very best technology in legal education. It will give our students a great advantage."

Some of technology highlights include fully digital courtrooms, state-of-the-art classrooms with the most advanced learning technologies, top-tier video conferencing capabilities for distance learning, internet-based video recording stations and interview rooms, computer labs and learning areas throughout the new law library (which serves as the law library for the entire Rocky Mountain region) and digital information kiosks throughout the building.

Justice Stephen Breyer will dedicate the 183,000 square foot building on September 8th. The Wolf Law Building will feature two high-tech courtrooms, 50 percent more space for law journal offices and law clinics, and the largest resource collection and most technologically advanced law library in the twelve-state Rocky Mountain region.

Also, in keeping with the outstanding national reputation for environmental law, Colorado Law is striving to make Wolf Law the first Gold-certified public law school building in the country under the exacting standards of the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Certificate (LEED Certified). That means 39 percent less indoor water usage than a conventional building, 100 percent renewable energy electricity, and recycling 90 percent of all construction waste.

FIRST LADY LAURA BUSH ACKNOWLEDGES LORENZO TRUJILLO FOR TRUANCY WORK

School absences a serious and growing problem; Truancy reaching thirty percent each day in some communities and 70,000 each day in Colorado

Boulder, CO --- Truancy is a serious issue of major concern throughout the United States and one program in Colorado has gained national attention and recognition by First Lady Laura Bush.

"We have a serious and growing problem in the United States with our children not attending school," said Lorenzo Trujillo, Assistant Dean of the University of Colorado Law School and author of a recent study on truancy. "70,000 students were out of school every day in Colorado alone in 2002 and more than two-thirds of all school absences nationwide were non-illness-related with absence rates reaching 30 percent each day in some communities. Truancy has monumental social ramifications and is one of the first and best indicators of academic failure, suspension, expulsion, delinquency and later adult crime."

The study was acknowledged by First Lady Laura Bush in a letter to Dean Trujillo, stating: "President Bush and I are grateful to educators and leaders like you who are taking positive steps to intervene before young people have strayed too far form their connections to school and community. Over and over, the difference in the lives of our youth is made by the personal intervention of someone who shows them-not tells them, shows them- that they matter and that they have what it takes to succeed. The President and I admire you for your good work." First Lady Laura Bush has devoted substantial efforts to improving the potential future of at-risk youths has directed national attention to truancy in the schools as one factor of at-risk youth.

Dean Trujillo spent five years implementing a truancy reduction project in Adams County Public Schools that provided tremendous quantifiable results to help keep kids in school. Project staff worked with Adams County courts and numerous intervention agencies, such as social services, mental health agencies, in-school counselors, day treatment programs, individual tutoring, Saturday classes, parenting classes, and drug and alcohol treatment programs to keep kids in school.

A comprehensive research study about the project was published in the University of California Journal of Juvenile Law and Policy this year: School Truancy: A Case Study of a Successful Truancy Reduction Model in the Public Schools, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 69-95. The study presents details about the model, economic impact, and success results. This past year, the University of Colorado Law School implemented a new Juvenile Law Clinic that works with schools and the courts in matters of dependency and neglect and truancy. As the CU Law School dedicates its new building on September 8th, 2006, the new Clinic, in collaboration with the Juvenile and Family Law Program, will have a new center of operations from where to provide these essential services to keep kids in school.

COLORADO LAW MAKES HISTORY IN HIGHER EDUCATION
National Bar Magazine Editorial
By: David Getches Dean, University of Colorado School of Law

The University of Colorado Law School will make history with the dedication of the new Wolf Law Building on the Boulder campus in September. Never before have students of an entire campus voted to tax themselves for construction of a new law school building.

Justice Stephen Breyer will dedicate the 183,000 square foot building on September 8th. The Wolf Law Building will feature state-of-the-art classrooms, two high-tech courtrooms, 50 percent more space for law journal offices and law clinics and the largest resource collection and most technologically advanced law library in the twelve-state Rocky Mountain region.

In keeping with the outstanding national reputation for environmental law, Colorado Law is striving to make Wolf Law the first Gold-certified public law school building in the country under the exacting standards of the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Certificate (LEED Certified). That means 39 percent less indoor water usage than a conventional building, 100 percent renewable energy electricity, and recycling 90 percent of all construction waste.

Since the school's founding in 1892 Colorado Law has developed a tradition of excellence that will be enhanced with the new Wolf Law Building.

The journey to a new home began in 1995 when an American Bar Association report found the Fleming Law Building inadequate. By 1998, a plan was assembled and approved by the Board of Regents for a new building.

That is when the alumni network and private donors stepped up. The seminal moment in the birth of the new building and the inspiration to break ground came from a $3 million donation from Marvin and Judi Wolf, Erving, and Joyce Wolf and Elaine Wolf in honor of Leon and Dora Wolf.

The Colorado Commission on Higher Education approved the law school's proposal for the building and over $20 million was committed to the project. Law students voted overwhelmingly for an annual $1,000 tuition increase to help fund the project and private fundraising began in earnest to finance the remaining balance.

Groundbreaking was scheduled for May 2002. At the time, Colorado's budget was in a tailspin fueled by the TABOR amendment to the state constitution, which restricted state expenditures. Legislative appropriations were abruptly rescinded as the state plunged into a financial crisis. In 2002, all capital construction funding ground to a halt and all of higher education, not just the law school, was suffering badly from major cuts.

Seven years after its original report, finding the law school's facilities inadequate, the ABA came calling again. In 2003, the ABA Accreditation Committee not only found Colorado Law in noncompliance because of the condition of its facilities, but it also threatened to take action.

In the fall of 2004, after months of intense negotiating within CU student government, campus leaders took the fee to a vote of the entire student body. The proposal resoundingly passed a capital development fee to fund the state's share of the law building and three other projects on the Boulder campus. Every student will pay $400 per year and this will produce over $100 million in capital investment on the CU campus Construction on the Wolf Law Building began in January 2005 with $21 million from student funds.

Private donors also invested heavily in support of the effort. They raised nearly $13 million towards the total cost of $46 million. The building was completed this month and the Law School is completing its move before classes begin on August 27, 2006.

The tradition of excellence at CU Law will thrive in this magnificent building. Wolf Law provides a new home that will continue to produce scholars who shape the nation and the world. It is a building worthy of the ideas and learning that will take place within its walls.

 

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