The merger of Penn State University and The Dickinson School of Law has been transformative for the law school. Since the merger, applications for admission have increased by more than 60 percent, student body diversity has tripled, and student body academic credentials are improving steadily and significantly. Additionally, we have enjoyed remarkable success recruiting diverse faculty members of unquestionably high scholarly standing. William E. Butler, the eminent authority on Russian and CIS legal systems, joined us from the University College London. Carlos Ball, a leading scholar of gay rights and political philosophy, joined us from the University of Illinois College of Law.

Thomas E. Carbonneau, whose name is synonymous with the scholarship of arbitration, joined us from Tulane. Tiyanjana Maluwa, renowned public international law scholar and senior United Nations and African Union official, joined us from the University of Cape Town. Panagiotis Takis Tridimas holds a joint appointment at Penn State along with his chair in international banking and finance at the University of London's Queen Mary College. And so forth.

These achievements contributed directly to a decision this year by the University to invest $100 million in new facilities for the law school (occupancy 2008) and to allocate an additional several million dollars annually in recurring funds to support new faculty and programs. This is the largest investment in an academic unit in the history of Penn State University.