[CORRECTION APPENDED]

In 2007, Law School Dean Elena Kagan was passed over to be president of Harvard University. This week, the next president of the United States selected her to be his chief representative to the Supreme Court.

If confirmed by the Senate, she will serve as the solicitor general, a position widely regarded as a stepping stone to an appointment to the nation’s highest court.

Law School students and faculty, although excited at the prospect of their dean ascending into the national spotlight and possibly to the Supreme Court, lamented the loss of the woman they said has made the school a friendlier, more diverse, and vibrant institution.

“It’s been an absolutely glorious tenure at HLS during the time she has been here,” law professor Richard H. Fallon said. “I think people will say she took a law school that had been austere to the point of being unfriendly and refashioned its self-image to one that’s more welcoming to students.”

Kagan is credited with instituting a series of reforms aimed at improving the first-year curriculum, strengthening student life, and encouraging public interest practice.

“She’s made the Law School much more human,” said Hrishikesh N. Hari, a first-year student. “Before her it was this huge machine where people were just cogs in a wheel.”

Kagan won students’ approval by providing free coffee, hot chocolate, and bagels, installing an ice skating rink, and renovating the student center. These small changes paid huge dividends, humanizing a school that had grown synonymous with impersonal treatment and apathy towards student life, students said.

But in the words of one student her achievements were greater than feeding hungry students

“It’s not all about free bagels,” said Kasey L. Martini, a second-year student.

Kagan poached top faculty like super-star legal scholar Cass R. Sunstein ’75 and Lawrence Lessig. She encouraged intellectual diversity among the faculty, notably hiring Jack L. Goldsmith, a conservative lawyer from the Bush White House, whose office stirred controversy for supporting the use of torture by the government. [CORRECTION APPENDED]

Kagan also instituted a pass/fail grading system for first year students and implemented curricular reform.

“I’m sure they’re celebrating in New Haven,” said Brian Leiter, a legal blogger and law professor at the University of Chicago. “She did bring a sleeping giant back to life on the market for faculty. It made things tough for lots of places.”

Students said that changing to a pass/fail grading system made the first year of law school much less stressful and that an intellectually diverse faculty led to a more dynamic learning experience.

Law students repeatedly cited the change in institutional mentality that has made the school a friendlier, less daunting place as Kagan’s most lasting legacy.

Yet students were unable to attribute this change to any of Kagan’s specific actions; rather, they credited the force of Kagan’s personality in altering the way the institution operates and treats its members.

“I’m proud to have had her,” said Janelle W. Weinstock, a third-year law student. “She’s made wonderful contributions to the law school, and we’ll miss her.”

—Athena Y. Jiang contriubted to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Elias J. Groll can be reached egroll@fas.harvard.edu.

CORRECTION
The Jan. 7 article "Students, Faculty Lament Departure of Popular Dean" incorrectly implied that Harvard Law School Professor Jack L. Goldsmith supported the United States' use of torture as the head of the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel. In fact, while members of the office had produced memos condoning the use of torture, Goldsmith left the office in protest over what he considered a flawed legal justification for the government's actions.