{"id":18622,"date":"2022-07-28T10:52:29","date_gmt":"2022-07-28T15:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/?p=18622"},"modified":"2022-07-28T10:52:29","modified_gmt":"2022-07-28T15:52:29","slug":"ed-butterfoss-longtime-professor-and-former-hamline-law-dean-retires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/2022\/07\/28\/ed-butterfoss-longtime-professor-and-former-hamline-law-dean-retires\/","title":{"rendered":"Ed Butterfoss, longtime professor and former Hamline Law dean, retires"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hamline University photo of Professor Ed Butterfoss (undated)<\/p><\/div>\n

Ed Butterfoss always returned to teaching.<\/p>\n

During his time as a faculty member at Hamline University \u2013 and later Mitchell Hamline \u2013 schools of law, Butterfoss found himself elevated \u2013 sometimes drafted \u2013 for leadership positions, including several years as Hamline Law\u2019s dean. But he always felt the pull of the classroom, eschewing a long career in administration to return to his faculty positions.<\/p>\n

A well-known instructor of contracts, criminal law, and criminal procedure \u2013 which included several appearances in local media to comment on various news stories of the day \u2013 Butterfoss retired this month after nearly 40 years in legal education.<\/p>\n

\u201cEd has given so much to the legal community in Minnesota and beyond,\u201d said President and Dean Anthony Niedwiecki. \u201cIn addition to the many thousands of students he\u2019s taught, Ed always stepped up to leadership positions when asked, and his ability to work with anyone made him successful each time.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe helped Hamline Law grow, which in turn helped Mitchell Hamline be the law school it is today.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Butterfoss’ soccer prowess, as detailed in an article from the Hamilton (OH) Journal News on Oct. 24, 1976.<\/p><\/div>\n

Raised in New Jersey, Butterfoss earned an undergraduate accounting degree \u2013 and played on his university\u2019s soccer team \u2013 before gravitating to law school. After graduating from Georgetown Law, he was in private practice for three years in Philadelphia before joining the faculty at Hamline Law in 1983 as an assistant professor.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt that point, our school was barely 11 years old and not well known, so it was a leap of faith to come to Hamline,\u201d said Professor Marie Failinger, who began at the law school the same day as Butterfoss. \u201cAs I remember it, it was sort of culture shock for him to come from the East Coast to Minnesota, which was overwhelmingly white.\u00a0So, one of his first and longest-term efforts was to try to bring more racial diversity to Hamline.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to any event and talked to anyone I could,\u201d said Butterfoss. \u201cPeople were incredibly welcoming and eager to help. I think we did a lot of good work over the years, especially to diversify the student body.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of Butterfoss\u2019 efforts were in partnership with the Minnesota Minority Lawyers Association, which awarded the school and Butterfoss its Distinguished Service Award in 1989. \u201cTo me, that\u2019s the most important work I\u2019ve done,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Butterfoss was also a founding board member of the Innocence Project of Minnesota, a board member of the ACLU of Minnesota and Centro Legal of Minnesota, and a member of the ABA Accreditation Committee, which he chaired for three years.<\/p>\n

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Page from The Oracle, Hamline University’s student newspaper, from September 1998, including an article announcing Butterfoss’ appointment as dean.<\/p><\/div>\n

In the 1990s, Butterfoss was tapped for a leadership role, serving as associate dean for academic affairs from 1995 to 1998, before being named dean of Hamline Law. He served for five years. During his tenure, Hamline Law began a program that allowed students to attend on weekends \u2013 an idea born from a conversation with a student, according to Butterfoss. At the time, it was only the second such program in the nation. Hamline Law also gained a national reputation for its alternative dispute resolution program during Butterfoss\u2019 deanship.<\/p>\n

But it was his personable leadership style that most of his colleagues from that time recall. \u201cHamline Law School had no finer dean than Ed,\u201d said Professor Emerita Carol Swanson, who served as associate dean during his deanship. \u201cI knew Ed to be a rare unicorn among law faculty and particularly deans, possessing endless humility and common sense. A peerless problem-solver, Ed most often cut to the chase with surgical precision.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Professor Butterfoss became Dean Butterfoss I learned what true leadership is,\u201d added Professor Emeritus Joe Daly.<\/p>\n

\u201cEd was a thoughtful leader who treated everyone fairly when he served as our dean at Hamline,\u201d said Professor David Larson, who began at Hamline the year Butterfoss became dean. \u201cIt\u2019s no surprise that he always has been an effective and popular professor because, to put it simply, he is a genuinely good person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Butterfoss stepped down as dean after the 2002-2003 school year to return to teaching after what had been eight years in administrative positions. A group of alumni, faculty, and staff stablished a diversity scholarship in his name that\u2019s still awarded annually to an incoming student.<\/p>\n

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Professor Ed Butterfoss<\/p><\/div>\n

But the calls to return to leadership never fully stopped.<\/p>\n

When Lucinda Jesson, then the director of Hamline\u2019s Health Law Institute, was named chair of the law school\u2019s dean search committee in the late 2000s, the responses she heard most from faculty, staff, students, and alums were \u201cWill Ed Butterfoss become dean again?\u201d and \u201cHire someone like Ed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring my five years at Hamline, I never met a student, staff member, faculty, or alum who did not have good things to say about Ed Butterfoss,\u201d said Jesson, who is now a judge on the Minnesota Court of Appeals. \u201cHe arrived on campus with boundless optimism and energy every day, and that optimism shone through in every interaction with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Butterfoss did serve one later stint as associate dean \u2013 from 2010 to 2012 \u2013 he always considered himself a teacher first. He was known for often riding his bike to work and hosting Kentucky Derby parties. And Butterfoss coached more than 50 teams in local recreation leagues \u2013 once commenting there were few children in St. Paul\u2019s Macalester-Groveland neighborhood he hadn\u2019t coached in some sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cEd Butterfoss was one of my favorite professors in law school because of his sincere enthusiasm for the law, and his way of making everyone in his class feel included and worthy of being a future lawyer,\u201d said John Choi, a 1995 Hamline Law alum who is now Ramsey County Attorney and a Mitchell Hamline trustee.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbove all, his service to the broader community and commitment to improving the quality of justice in our state is a legacy that all of us should seek to emulate in our professions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ed Butterfoss always returned to teaching. During his time as a faculty member at Hamline University \u2013 and later Mitchell Hamline \u2013 schools of law, Butterfoss found himself elevated \u2013 sometimes drafted \u2013 for leadership positions, including several years as Hamline Law\u2019s dean. But he always felt the pull of the classroom, eschewing a long … <\/p>\n

Ed Butterfoss, longtime professor and former Hamline Law dean, retires<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5668,"featured_media":18626,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,22,5],"tags":[28,53,472,470,467,35,119,471,468,469,227],"class_list":["post-18622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-features","category-history-center","category-news","tag-alumni","tag-anthony-niedwiecki","tag-carol-swanson","tag-david-larson","tag-ed-butterfoss","tag-faculty","tag-john-choi","tag-joseph-daly","tag-lucinda-jesson","tag-marie-failinger","tag-retirements","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}