Hannah Rose Arterian

Hannah Arterian, the legal academic and administrator who held the Deanship at Syracuse University’s College of Law for thirteen years, died on April 8 in Los Angeles. She was 72.

While Dean of Syracuse’s College of Law, Arterian campaigned to institute many changes at the college. Her most notable professional legacy was the construction of Dineen Hall, where the College of Law is currently housed. Through tireless fundraising and dogged research with colleagues of other law school structures across the country, Arterian’s vision of the legal academic space was realized in the building’s completion in 2014.

Hannah Rose Arterian was born on September 9, 1949 in Manhattan to Jacques and Celeste (Nienstedt) Arterian, and grew up in Prince’s Bay on Staten Island. Her mother was of German and English descent, her father a child of Armenian and Assyrian immigrants. Jacques was an accountant in Manhattan, and Celeste taught math and several foreign languages at Staten Island’s Tottenville High School. Throughout her childhood with her parents and sister Susan, Arterian was encouraged to read books, play and enjoy classical music, and stoke whatever curiosities she had. Her senior year of high school, she was voted most likely to succeed. She is survived by her sister Susan Arterian, her son William Furnish, her daughters Susannah, Diana, and Cordelia Arterian, as well as her three granddaughters Marnie and Celeste Arterian, and Helena Muñoz Furnish.