DEAN CONWAY TO RECEIVE THE AALS’ INAUGURAL 2020 IMPACT AWARD
October 2020 — The AALS has announced that Danielle M. Conway, who is the Dean and Donald J. Farage Professor of Law, will receive the Association of American Law Schools’ (AALS) 2020 Inaugural Impact Award, along with four Black women law dean colleagues, for the creation of the Law Deans Antiracist Clearinghouse Project. The AALS Executive Committee established the Impact Award this year to honor individuals or a group of individuals who have had a significant positive impact on legal education or the legal profession.
Launched in June 2020, the Antiracist Clearinghouse Project is a webpage for law deans, faculty, and the public that contains resources and information related to addressing racism in law and legal education. “I applaud the AALS for helping me and my sister deans realize our vision of responding to racism and violence with a collective voice as Black women law deans,” said Conway. “As has been the tradition of Black women advocates and community leaders, we used our collective voice and our shared experiences to curate the Law Deans Antiracist Clearinghouse Project. I am fortified by our sisterhood.”
Dean Conway and her fellow deans will receive the Inaugural Impact Award during an awards ceremony that will begin at 1:15pm on Tuesday, January 5, 2021, which is the first day of the AALS’ 2021 Annual Meeting. All law faculty and deans attending the AALS meeting are invited to attend the virtual awards ceremony. “The AALS thanks these five law school leaders for creating the Law Deans Antiracist Clearinghouse Project and is pleased to honor their efforts with the inaugural AALS Impact Award,” said Darby Dickerson, AALS President and Dean of UIC John Marshall Law School. “These remarkable women conceptualized and created this phased guide to help law schools develop a sustainable antiracist agenda and provide resources and steps for each phase of the process. Given the project’s impact, they are the perfect inaugural recipients.”
“The five extraordinary deans who are receiving this award acted decisively in a moment that required a meaningful response from all of us in legal education,” said Vince Rougeau, AALS President-elect and Dean of Boston College Law School. “In assembling these resources, they have provided their colleagues with a wonderful set of materials to support our work in building an antiracist future for our law schools, our profession, and our society.”
Danielle M. Conway is the Dean and Donald J. Farage Professor of Law at Penn State Dickinson Law. A leading expert in procurement law, entrepreneurship, and intellectual property law, Dean Conway joined Dickinson Law after serving for four years as dean of the University of Maine School of Law and 14 years on the faculty of the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, William S. Richardson School of Law, where she was the inaugural Michael J. Marks Distinguished Professor of Business Law. Prior to her deanships, Conway was a member of the faculties at the Georgetown University Law Center and the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law. She also served as a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Australia and later as Chair in Law at LaTrobe University, Faculty of Law & Management. Dean Conway is the author or editor of six books and casebooks as well as numerous book chapters, articles, and essays. Her scholarly agenda and speeches have focused on, among other areas, advocating for public education and for actualizing the rights of marginalized groups, including Indigenous Peoples, minoritized people, and members of rural communities. Dean Conway is the co-recipient of the inaugural Association of American Law Schools’ Impact Award, which honors individuals who have had a significant positive impact on legal education or the legal profession. Dean Conway was recognized for her work in establishing the Law Deans Antiracist Clearinghouse Project. Launched in June 2020, the project is a webpage for law deans, faculty, and the public that contains resources and information related to addressing racism in law and legal education. In 2016, Dean Conway retired from the U.S. Army in the rank of lieutenant colonel after 27 years of combined active, reserve, and national guard service.