Dean Danielle Conway is leaving the University of Maine School of Law and taking the reins as the new dean of Penn State’s Dickinson Law, officials said Tuesday.

Conway, who became UMaine’s dean in 2015, will stay at the Portland campus for a few months and begin at Dickinson Law in July.

“Maine has been truly fortunate to have had Dean Conway leading our state’s law school over the past four years, guiding an extraordinary faculty and launching several innovative initiatives that will endure long after her departure,” said University of Southern Maine President Glenn Cummings.

Conway launched several initiatives, including the Rural Lawyer Project to increase the number of lawyers serving rural Maine and the PLUS program to provide leadership opportunities for underrepresented students.

“It has been a privilege to serve the state of Maine,” Conway said in a statement. “I am proud of what my faculty, staff, boards, and I have accomplished at Maine Law and in the state of Maine, and I am confident that what we have built together provides a strong platform for the law school’s next leader.”

A national search will be launched to find the next dean of Maine Law. An interim dean is expected to be announced in the next few weeks.

Before joining the University of Maine School of Law, Conway was at the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where she had been the Michael J. Marks Distinguished Professor of Business Law and the director of the Hawaii Procurement Institute.

Noel Gallagher can be contacted at 791-6387 or at:

ngallagher@pressherald.com

Twitter: noelinmaine