FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - One of the most accomplished members of the University of Arkansas School of Law faculty, Mark R. Killenbeck, has been appointed the Wylie H. Davis Professor of Law.

Killenbeck, who has been on the School of Law faculty since 1988, teaches courses in constitutional law, the First Amendment, legal history, and federal jurisdiction. He is also a prolific scholar, with a particular interest in federalism and American constitutional history. He holds an A.B. from Boston College in English Literature and a J.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska.

School of Law Dean Robert B. Moberly said, "Mark is a gifted teacher who has developed a well-deserved national reputation for his path-breaking scholarship and numerous other contributions to the law."

The Wylie H. Davis Professorship, established in 1998, was made possible through a gift from the estate of the late Claude Finch, a farmer from Monet, Ark. -- a client and friend of Fayetteville attorney E. J. Ball who was the executor of Finch’s estate.

Davis is a distinguished professor emeritus of the School of Law and long-time member of the faculty. He served as the dean of the School of Law from 1973 to 1978.

Jake Looney, distinguished professor of law, was the first holder of the Davis Professorship, but recently retired from the faculty.

Moberly said, "E.J. Ball is one of the Law School’s most distinguished graduates. He is a highly respected member of the bar and served the University with distinction for a number of years as a member of its Board of Trustees. We are deeply grateful that E.J. chose to carry out the estate of his friend Claude Finch, by establishing a professorship in the name of Wylie Davis, one of the School of Law’s truly great deans."

After receiving his J.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska, Killenbeck held a variety of positions in that university’s central administration. Among his many publications are recent articles on affirmative action in university admissions, originalism in constitutional interpretion and the Supreme Court’s recent federalism decisions. These articles will appear, respectively in the California Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, and the Supreme Court Review.

Killenbeck is an elected member of the American Law Institute and serves on a number of member consultative groups for that Institute. He is also an active member of a number of learned societies, including the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, the Supreme Court Historical Society, the American Political Science Association, and the Association for the Study of Higher Education. He has been an invited speaker at numerous national conferences, and in addition to his duties at the law school he has held appointments as a visiting research scholar at the University of Michigan Law School and as a visiting professor in the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, also at the University of Michigan.

The University of Arkansas School of Law was established in 1924. The graduating class of 1999 consisted of 111 students, of which 40 percent were women. The National Center for Agricultural Law Research and Information (NCALRI), located at the School of Law, offers the only advanced degree program available in the United States in Agricultural Law, the Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree program.