Cornell Law School Dean to Head Seattle University

Cornell University Law School Dean Eduardo M. Penalver will take over as the president of Seattle University.

Penalver, 47, will be Seattle Universitys 22nd president and its first Latino president. Penalver will officially start with the university on July 1, 2021. The current president, Stephen V. Sundborg, S.J., will step down in June after 24 years of leading the university.

Penalver spent seven years as the dean of Cornell Law School. Under his leadership, law school faculty were principal investigators on federal grants and received millions of dollars in grants from private foundations. He also clerked for late U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

Penalver is a Puyallup native and grew up in a Catholic family. He went to All Saints Catholic School for primary education and attended Henry Foss High School in Tacoma.

In our country, polarized as we are along political and religious lines, Seattle Universitys identity as both Catholic and progressive gives it a distinctive voice as it speaks not only to members of this community, but to the wider community, here in the Pacific Northwest and beyond, he said.