by Masudur Rahman

Senior Reporter

Oakland University and Thomas M. Cooley Law School officials announced Monday that OU will be the exclusive education partner university of Cooley’s Auburn Hills campus and that Cooley’s Auburn Hills campus will be the exclusive educational law school of OU.

Under this partnership, OU students will benefit as Cooley will continue to give preferred admission to OU students and Cooley’s Auburn Hills campus will start to reserve a minimum of 15 spots in each section for OU students.

Another part of the agreement is that OU Honors College students with a minimum GPA of 3.5 and a minimum LSAT score of 149 are eligible for early admission to Cooley during or after the second semester of their junior year, and could receive a 35 percent tuition scholarship.

Furthermore, the OUHC students who are admitted early to Cooley can take two introductory classes at the Auburn Hills campus during their last or second-to-last semester at OU.

Cooley also has campuses in Grand Rapids and Lansing, and while OU students will be given preferred admission to those campuses, only the Auburn Hills  will reserve spots for OU students and let those eligible take classes early.

This new partnership will benefit Cooley students too.

There was an agreement in 2006 that allowed OU students to use the law library at Cooley. Now, Cooley students can use the recreation center, library and other facilities at OU.

Associate Dean of Cooley’s Auburn Hills Campus, John Nussbaumer, said that he was excited about the prospect of Cooley students finally “having a campus now.” When asked to clarify, he said that Cooley “could never afford to build a rec center. But now, Cooley students can enjoy the benefits of a rec center and other facilities.”

The OU-Cooley 2006 partnership allows Cooley students to get a masters degree in business administration or in public administration while pursuing a juris doctor (law degree) at Cooley.

At the conference, Cooley’s president Don LeDuc said that they are planning more OU-Cooley joint programs. “I look forward to mornings like this, when we’ll be able to announce more partnership programs,” he said.

Everyone at the conference seemed to support this joint venture.

OU president Gary Russi said that he has high hopes for the partnership. “Like so many of these ventures, we don’t know what the future holds,” he said, “but it’s likely to be great because we’re working with such first-rate partners.”

Nussbaumer said at the conference that he was not only excited about the venture, but also dedicated to making OU a nationally recognized university in terms of law education. “As I understand it,” he said, “OU is already the national leader for percentage admitted to medical schools. I want to see if we can make OU the national leader for admittance to law schools too.”

Vice chair of OU’s board of trustees Henry Baskin said that this partnership is a “very positive thing for OU students” because it will do “quite a bit for OU’s stature. It also improves Cooley’s stature in this community,” he added.

OU’s senior vice president for academic affairs and provost Virinder Moudgil said he believes that this venture will “produce community leaders through the sharing of knowledge and expertise.”

In an interview after the conference, Oakland County’s Executive L. Brooks Patterson expressed his support. “This is good news for OU and Cooley, but it’s also equally good news for Oakland County,” he said. “This will help keep some of our brightest in Oakland County, where I want them to stay.”

OU trustee Monica Emerson had similar thoughts. “These kinds of partnerships demonstrate the revitalization in this area, in spite of tough economic times,” she said.

Cooley Law School offers juris doctor degrees to its students, and masters of law degree in taxation or in intellectual property. Nussbaumer said that its Auburn Hills campus has rolling admission and admits 150 students in September, 80 in January and 150 in May. A minimum of 15 spots will be reserved for eligible OU students each of these three times.

Russi said that this partnership and the preferred admission will benefit OU students pursuing law degrees greatly. “There are thousands of students who apply [to law schools] every year and don’t get in,” he said.

“This will keep students at home in this state, and probably cut their education costs,” he added.