DEAN CONWAY’S $125,000 SCHOLARSHIP GIFT CONTINUES TO INSPIRE OTHER LAW DEANS
November 2020 — Dean Danielle M. Conway’s $125,000 gift to the Dickinson Law Future Fund not only helps law students at Penn State Dickinson Law, but it has indirectly helped law students at other schools as well. Dean Conway’s gift has been cited as the inspiration for other five-figure gifts by U.S. law school deans.
In July 2020, Dean Danielle Conway demonstrated her commitment to investing in students and developing the next generation of leaders by making a gift of $125,000 to the Dickinson Law Future Fund. This fund provides unrestricted support for critical areas of need, and for the Penn State Student Care and Advocacy Emergency Fund, which supports students in financial need across the Commonwealth who apply for emergency assistance. Her act inspired faculty and staff to give nearly $27,000 — matched dollar for dollar by Penn State — to create the Dickinson Law Faculty and Staff Educational Equity Scholarship, focused on increasing student diversity and providing for those with financial need.
Dean Conway’s influence was not limited to Penn State Faculty and Staff, however. Since her original $125,000 gift, at least five other law school deans have made gifts of more than $100,000 for student scholarships. Pepperdine Dean Paul Caron has documented these gifts in his influential TaxProfBlog, which frequently has stated that Dean Conway’s gift, which was the first of this kind, inspired her fellow deans to make similar gifts.
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.