Student Counsel. More colleges are fi nding that laywers have the skills to be ideal presidents.

• Author: Lyle Moran
• Pages: 54-61

It was spring break at Benedict College when news reports

emerged in March 2020 that the novel coronavirus was

spreading across the country. Yet there were still hun-

dreds of students on the school’s campus in Columbia,

South Carolina.

Benedict President Roslyn Clark Artis and her team worked

around the clock to help the students, including international

ones, quickly return home so the campus could close because

of the mounting public health crisis. Meanwhile, the histor-

ically Black college extended spring break for an additional

week so that faculty could transition classes online to nish out

the semester.

After the liberal arts institution made it through that initial

tumult sparked by COVID-19, Artis turned her attention to

determining what the next academic year would look like for the

school’s roughly 2,000 students.

Fortunately for her, she was able to rely on the problem-solv-

ing and critical thinking skills she developed during her decade as

a lawyer in private practice—especially when it came to grap-

pling with the array of liability issues presented by the evolving

pandemic. Of paramount importance was deciding whether stu-

dents and employees could safely return to campus in the 2020-

21 academic year. Ultimately, Benedict allowed up to 50% of its

students to come back in person and implemented a universal

testing protocol as part of its extensive safety measures. The col-

lege also instituted a policy that allowed faculty with underlying

health conditions and of advanced age to teach remotely, deter-

mining that the institution could potentially face legal exposure

if it forced them to return in person at the peak of the pandemic

and without a vaccine being available.

Lawyers find their skill sets

make them ideal candidates

for college presidencies

BY LYLE MORAN

ABA JOURNAL | APRIL–MAY 2021

54

ABAJ AP -MAY S E SE PM