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Let me extend to each of you a very warm welcome to this particular program and to this rededication celebration. Nineteen ninety four-ninety five is a very special year in the history both of the University and of the School of Law. The University is celebrating its 125th year of service to the metropolitan areal through a series of programs that will run this entire year.2 This series of programs started with a spectacular event at St. Patrick's Cathedral3 and will end with a celebration on Ellis Island.4 Ellis Island is especially significant as the point of access for so many of the students that we have served. 5
As you well know, the Law School is also celebrating the completion of a major addition to the physical facilities6 and is rededicating the School to the purposes for which it was established in 1925.7 That purpose is the provision of quality legal education, rooted in the moral values which come from the University's religious heritage and its sponsorship to those individuals who have historically been denied access to the profession.
As the School has evolved through the years, the constituency of those whom the School has sponsored has changed. The School started in Brooklyn in 1925, when the largest student group was Jewish, even though the School was under Catholic auspices. Today the School has reached a point where it reflects its location: it is in Queens, New York, the heart of one of the most diverse communities in the United States with many nationalities represented. The Law School has made an investment in that type of diversity. This year we were able to achieve a more diverse student population with the minority enrollment comprising thirty-three percent of our entering class.8 That enrollment reflects the community that the School serves.
It is particularly significant that academic programs comprise part of this rededication weekend9 because academics is essentially what the institution is about. The physical facilities are simply the predicate for the intellectual and academic community which inhabits it.lo Accordingly, I think it is important that we have a number of programs such as Evolving Technology and Law Library Planningl'- a program of special interest to me.
I know that the literature focuses on the program...