Contact: Bill Caldwell, Office of Public Information, Pace University, 212-346-1597, wcaldwell@pace.edu

Pace University appoints Robert G.M. Keating Vice President for Strategic Initiatives

Current head of NY State Judicial Institute expected to enhance Pace programs in career-focused personal development for professionals

Will also oversee research grants, government and community relations

NEW YORK, NY -- Robert G.M. Keating, dean of the New York State Judicial Institute, has been appointed Vice President for Strategic Initiatives at Pace University, effective December 1.

Working with the president and provost, Judge Keating will coordinate and shape Pace’s offerings in career-focused personal development for professionals, its government and community relations and its institutionally-funded faculty activities and research.

As dean of the New York State Judicial Institute, Judge Keating has been responsible for supervising the continuing judicial education of New York State’s 1200 state-paid judges and its more than 2000 town and village justices. He also has administered the continuing legal education program for the 2000 attorneys who work for the state’s Unified Court System.

Judge Keating presently is vice chair of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary, having previously served as New York City Coordinator of Criminal Justice for Mayor Edward Koch.

Prototype. A former business executive and private attorney, Judge Keating is widely respected for his work as Administrative Judge of the New York City Criminal Court. In this position he oversaw the creation of the Midtown Community Court, which uses resources from government, business groups and others in the community to provide on-site education, job training and drug rehabilitation programs for defendants who commit low level quality-of-life offenses. This court has become the prototype for “problem-solving courts” in the US and abroad.

“Robert Keating is a strong, admired administrator who knows the educational needs of successful professionals in a variety of fields and the processes of politics and research,” said Stephen J. Friedman, Pace’s president. “He will intensify many of Pace’s traditional strengths and add new ones.”

“Outside the Box.” Added Jonathan Lippman, the state’s former Chief Administrative Judge, who has known Judge Keating a variety of roles, “Judge Keating has a track record of bringing together government, academics, the private sector, and local communities. He ‘thinks outside the box’ and has the ability to transform good ideas into reality.”

In his new role, Judge Keating will concentrate on Pace's portfolio of adult and continuing education programs, and on institutional funding opportunities in areas where there is a match between Pace’s research capabilities and the needs of the marketplace, including the needs of local, state, and federal government. Reporting to President Friedman and Provost Geoffrey L. Brackett, he will oversee Pace’s Offices of Government and Community Relations, Sponsored Research, Adult and Continuing Education, and English Language Institute.

Judge Keating earned his A.B. from Georgetown University and his L.L.B. from the Duke University Law School.

For 102 years Pace University has produced thinking professionals by providing high quality professional education resting on a firm base of liberal learning, amid the advantages of the New York metropolitan area. A private university, Pace has campuses in New York City and Westchester County, New York, enrolling more than 13,000 students in bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral programs in its Lubin School of Business, Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, Lienhard School of Nursing, School of Education, School of Law, and Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems. www.pace.edu