Colin Crawford leaving Georgia State for Tulane University in New Orleans
May 24, 2010
ATLANTA—Georgia State University College of Law Professor Colin Crawford has been named Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Payson Center for International Development at Tulane University Law School, where he will begin working July 1.
Crawford came to Georgia State in 2003 and serves as co-director of the law school's Center for Comparative Study of Metropolitan Growth with Professor Julian Juergensmeyer. He also directs the Summer Legal Study Program in Rio de Janeiro, a large, inter-disciplinary summer foreign study program in Rio de Janeiro that offers courses in comparative and international environmental and land use law, social justice and human rights law, and corporate and trade law. His latest project, Study Space, brings together a dozen academics and graduate students for an intensive study of one city in the Americas or the Caribbean.
Crawford's fellow Georgia State Law faculty members recently bade him farewell at a luncheon at the Commerce Club in Downtown Atlanta, where he thanked them for their friendship and the help they have given him during his time at the law school.
"I love my job here, and of course that's because of all the people you work with," Crawford said.
Crawford particularly thanked Professors Ellen Taylor, Anne Emanuel, James Bross, Marjorie Girth, Marjorie Knowles and Julian Juergensmeyer. He also thanked Dean Steven J. Kaminshine and former Dean Janice Griffith, as well as Assistant Dean Bill Prigge, for their support of his work. Crawford said he's already been in talks with Dean Kaminshine about collaborative work between Tulane and Georgia State.
"I just want to thank you all for everything," Crawford told the faculty, "and I'm sure our paths will continue to cross."
Kaminshine said the law school is a better place for the contributions Crawford has made during his time there. "You are without a doubt the most indefatigable human being I know," Kaminshine told Crawford. "Your ability to manage and multi-task is just amazing. You leave big shoes to fill. You and Julian have built a terrific center with a lot of academic cachet. You are leaving us a better law school than you found it."
Juergensmeyer, who was once a member of the faculty at Tulane Law School, said he has always believed that you never can really appreciate how hard-working and committed a colleague is until you need to take over some of their activities and responsibilities. This is certainly true of Crawford, he said.
"Even though I have worked closely with him for the seven years that he has been a member of our faculty, now that he is leaving for a internationally significant new position at Tulane Law School, I realize more each day how much Colin has done for Georgia State Law," Juergensemeyer said.
While Crawford will be impossible to replace, Juergensmeyer said, the law school hopes to make a new hire in the near future. In the meantime, Professor James Bross is working with Juergensmeyer to continue and expand on as many of the activities for which Crawford was responsible.
The center will continue with its many programs, including the well-respected Urban Fellows Program, the Summer Legal and Policy Study in Rio de Janeiro, the foreign enrichment comparative metro growth course and the dual degree program with Georgia Tech.
Crawford's research focuses comparative, cross-cultural environmental justice issues, with a particular focus on Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2009, Crawford was awarded a three-year, $650,000 grant to do environmental law capacity building in Guatemala, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.
A graduate of Harvard Law School, Crawford also holds degrees in modern history from Columbia University and Cambridge University. As a lawyer, he worked in Tokyo and New York, concentrating in environmental and land use law. He is the author of an award-winning book of narrative non-fiction, Uproar at Dancing Rabbit Creek: Battling Over Race, Class and the Environment, and he also has written on environmental topics for The Wall Street Journal and Salon.com, among others.
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Wendy Cromwell, 404.413.9050
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