Colin Crawford starts role as new UALR Bowen Law School dean

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock officially welcomed Colin Crawford as the newest dean of the William H. Bowen School of Law. Crawford started the role on July 1.

“We are excited to welcome Dean Crawford to UA Little Rock and the Bowen School of Law,” Provost Ann Bain said. “I look forward to working with him closely to continue advancing the mission of the UA Little Rock Bowen School of Law.”

Before coming to UA Little Rock, he served as dean at Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco. He also served as dean of the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville, following academic positions at several institutions, including tenured positions at Tulane University and at Georgia State University. He founded and co-directed the Center for the Comparative Study of Metropolitan Growth at Georgia State University.

“I am pleased to join a solid institution with an amazing history,” Crawford said. “Bowen has a tremendous, enterprising faculty and plays a central role in the life of Arkansas’s capital city and its region. I’m excited to join an institution that is already very strong — and look forward to working with faculty, staff, students, alumni, and other university and community constituents to make Bowen even stronger and to help raise its profile even further.”

Crawford holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Columbia University, a master’s degree in history from the University of Cambridge, and a law degree from Harvard Law School. His academic scholarship focuses on environmental, property, urban development, and land-use law questions, especially in a comparative and international context.

His international experience includes having developed and taught courses throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, serving as the project director for the Environmental Law Capacity-Building Initiative in Central America funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, and publishing books and articles in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. Crawford has also lectured and taught in Brazil, China, Colombia, Cuba, France, Japan, Panama, South Korea and Switzerland and was a Fulbright scholar in the Dominican Republic.

Crawford succeeds Theresa Beiner, who served in the position since 2018. She joined Bowen in 1994 and has stepped down to return to faculty.