D i s c o v e r y
A Conversation with Roy Steinheimer On Coming to W&L
I was at Michigan between 15 and 20 years when some friends of mine who I respected approached me about this opportunity at Washington and Lee. At first it seemed to me I really didn’t want to make any change, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought I ought to accept the challenge, which it was, to see what I could do with the School, so I just took the leap.
The Sky Dean
I was a reasonably accomplished pilot and had my own aircraft, and I did a lot of flying on business for the University of Michigan. When I came to W&L, it was even more important to me to have the airplane because it was relatively isolated. In addition to having a full teaching load, I flew the plane to recruit students. And one of the things I always stressed was the size of the school. When I was at Michigan, I could see the disadvantages of size with professional schools, when so much depends on shaping and molding the person as a professional. I was convinced that Michigan had gotten too big and had suffered as a result of that. So one of things that I emphasized to Bob Huntley and to members of the Board is that we had to preserve at all costs the advantages we had of size. I thought we could turn out finer professional people if we got to know them and were in constant contact with them so that the professionalism that we as professors had could rub off on them.
Challenges
Roy Steinheimer served as dean from 1968 to 1983, retiring from the deanship at the then mandatory retirement age of 65. He continued teaching as a professor of law until retiring with emeritus status in 1987. In 1989, he returned to W&L as an adjunct professor of law, a position he held until 1999. Steinheimer, who turned 93 last Dec. 2, lives at the Kendal Retirement Community in Lexington. One of his neighbors and frequent lunch companions is Bob Huntley ’51, ’57L, former president of W&L and also a former dean of the Law School. P h o t o
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One of the first challenges was space. We needed more space for classroom and library facilities. Then there was the challenge of broadening people’s awareness of Washington and Lee as a possibility for studying law. When I talked to Bob Huntley about coming here, one of the things that I told him I would want to do was to have the Law School be a coeducational operation. He said that was fine with him, but it would have to be approved by the Board of Trustees. It took some time for that change to occur, and frankly I was helped when the Association of American Law Schools and the American Bar Association established a requirement that law schools had to be co-ed, which was a trump card for me. The first year or so having women was a little tense at times. We had six women in the first class, six women on the whole campus. And during the first year, I could almost guarantee that once a week a delegation of six women would appear at my door to demand something.
My Greatest Achievement
It’s a little hard to single out any particular thing. One of the toughest jobs was bringing the women aboard. So many things about the W&L operation were geared entirely toward men, and it was a real job getting the women accommodated without there being a lot of noses out of joint. I had to fight the battle of having the athletic facilities opened up to the women, and also housing facilities. It was a lot of work, but this was something that had to happen.
His Advice to the Law School Today
I feel very satisfied by what we accomplished at W&L. I hope the School will remain small and selective and resist the temptation to get too large, and still have an impact on the profession. W & L
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