19
STETSON LEGACY
Professor Beane was founder and director of the Summer Abroad Program in The
Hague, Netherlands, Stetson’s most popular study abroad program.
Professor Dorothea A. Beane Scholarship
A distinguished committee of Stetson BLSA alumni created The
Professor Dorothea A. Beane Scholarship to honor the work and
career of Professor Beane.
It is intended to attract and retain Black students with enormous
potential each academic year at Stetson Law. Scholarship
consideration may be given to first-generation African American
college students and students with financial need. Eligible first-year
students qualify, as do eligible 2L or 3L African American students
either in the full-time or part-time J.D. program.
“This scholarship is really the first initiative to rally and gather the
Black student alumni,” said Danielle Weaver-Rogers, J.D. ’13, and one
of the committee members. The goal is to fund 100 percent tuition.
Clinton Paris, J.D./MBA ’00, agreed: “This scholarship gives
alumni a chance to make a statement.”
PROFESSOR
DOROTHEA BEANE
RETIRES
B Y A S H L E Y M C K N I G H T - TAY LOR
Longtime professor of law
and co-director of the
Institute for Caribbean
Law and Policy, Dorothea A.
Beane, announced her retirement
from Stetson Law,
effective December 2020. She
still serves the College as a
Professor of Law Emeritus.
Professor Beane is a Stetson
Law legend with 30 years
teaching Federal Pre-Trial
Practice, Civil Procedure,
International Human Rights Law, and The Law of International
Tribunals. She was founder and director of the Summer Abroad
Program in The Hague, Netherlands, and has worked extensively
in The Hague on matters involving international criminal law and
human rights. She was the first minority tenured faculty at Stetson
Law and received the College of Law Teaching Excellence Award
in 2005. Beane joined Stetson after her first career as a trial attorney
at the Department of Justice.
While her résumé and accolades make clear her legal and teaching
prowess, it is the stories her colleagues and former students tell that
reveal the true impact Beane had at Stetson Law. And a theme
begins to emerge: demanding, but compassionate.
“The perfect description of Professor Beane is ‘tough love,’” said Ted
Karatinos, J.D. ’93 and adjunct professor. “She sets a high bar but
bends over backward to help them meet it.”
Judge Michael Allen was a member of the faculty from 2001 to 2017
and said that while Beane projected a tough exterior, she had a softer
side that was evident in how she would go out of her way to help
students, be it with law school or in their personal lives. During his
tenure as associate dean, Beane was an honor code investigator who
would be brutally honest in her fact-finding, but exceedingly practical
in her recommended punishments, primarily because she cared
so much for students. She did not want to let one mistake define
them or the rest of their careers, Allen explained.
Clinton Paris, J.D./MBA ’00, said he’d never even had Beane as a
professor, but she made a point to stop him in the courtyard to chat
one day.
“She was just profound at this,” Paris said. “She knew every Black
student on campus and went out of her way to make a connection
with you.”
Her efforts went beyond simple small talk. Beane encouraged Paris to
apply for an internship with Judge Mary Scriven and to try out for Moot
Court Board and Law Review. She pushed him to work harder and aim
higher while still reassuring him that success was possible if he put his
mind to it and embraced the challenge. Quite simply, Paris said, Beane
made sure he got the most out of law school.
“You didn’t want to let her down,” Paris said.
Karatinos took Civil Procedure I with Beane the first year she started
teaching at Stetson Law. She tapped him as a teaching assistant and to
help draft a Law Review article. Eleven years later, Beane asked him to
guest lecture for one of her classes, and they have co-taught Federal
Civil Pretrial Practice since 2002.
Karatinos said when it came to students, Beane was generous with her
time, providing office hours, tutoring, and plenty of feedback – a
hallmark of her teaching style. She also stressed to students that her
classroom was a safe space to make a mistake; she’d rather they do it
there and learn from it instead of out in the real world. In doing so, she
not only ingrained the lesson but built students’ confidence.
“To me, she’s a Stetson icon.”