Ave Maria Announcement

The Chronicle of Higher Education carried Ave Maria School of Law's announcement today that it will move from Ann Arbor, Michigan to a new town being built in Florida:

February 20, 2007
Conservative Catholic Law School Founded by Pizza King to Move From Mich. to Fla.
The Ave Maria School of Law announced this afternoon that it would move in 2009 from Ann Arbor, Mich., to the new town of Ave Maria, Fla., which is being built in former tomato fields in southwestern Florida between Naples and Immokalee. The law school was established in 1999 by Thomas S. Monaghan, the founder of Domino’s Pizza and a supporter of conservative Roman Catholic causes. The town of Ave Maria will also be home to Ave Maria University, also backed by Mr. Monaghan. Both institutions’ missions, like an Ave Maria College campus in Ypsilanti, Mich., that is now closing, are to provide an education in a conservative, Catholic intellectual tradition.
Bernard Dobranski, the law school’s president and dean, said in an interview that its Board of Governors had decided on the move after five years of discussing its options. He said Collier County, Fla., where the school will be located, is one of the nation’s fastest growing metropolitan areas, yet is without a law school. The school’s proximity to the university will create an intellectually stimulating milieu, he added. “Our presence there will be mutually beneficial to them and to us.” He said that although some faculty members have opposed the move, “everyone on the faculty and the staff is invited to come.”