Contact Information

Courses

Dennis A. Olson

• J.D. Brigham Young University '84
• B.A. Brigham Young University '78

Professor Olson began his career in legal education in 1986, after having served one year as judicial law clerk for the Honorable J. Ray Durtschi in Boise, Idaho and one year in private practice in Portland, Oregon. Professor Olson has taught at the Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago-Kent College of Law, the University of Oklahoma College of Law, Oklahoma City University School of Law, Texas Wesleyan University School of Law, the Appalachian School of Law, Florida Coastal School of Law, and Texas Tech University School of Law. Professor Olson has taught sixteen different law school courses. His primary areas of scholarship are Constitutional Law and the First Amendment.

In addition to his faculty responsibilities, Professor Olson served as the Associate Dean at Texas Wesleyan and was the founding Dean at Appalachian. Professor Olson has also been a Distinguished Visiting Professor of American Legal Studies at Southern Virginia College and Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Great Falls (in Great Falls, Montana). In his administrative roles, Professor Olson has been actively involved in accreditation processes with a variety of accreditiors and has served as the co-chair of an accreditation site team for the American Academy for Liberal Education (AALE).

Professor Olson has also been a frequent radio guest and often provides television news broadcasts with commentary covering an array of topics relating to Constitutional Law, such as Supreme Court appointments and confirmation processes, journalist privilege, and race-based admissions policies. He also was the lead briefwriter in a First Amendment challenge to the criminal sanctions under the Texas Open Meetings Act that is now pending with the Fifth Circuit.

Professor Olson came to the University of Detroit Mercy in 2007