Dear Alumni Community:
At the recent alumni awards luncheon we celebrated our outstanding alumni award recipients but—more than that—celebrated the power of our alumni network. It is an extensive network throughout Chicagoland, with shared values of service and respect for the dignity of others. In my four years as dean, I have met so many of you who deeply appreciate your DePaul Law education, go on and do great things with your law degree while also giving to each other and to our students.
This year especially, I have seen the power of our network throughout the law school, as our alumni become more and more engaged in meaningful ways:
—our alumni created full-time jobs for the class of 2018, helping to increase the full-time JD and JD advantage job placement rate by 4% from last year;
—our alumni participated regularly in our 1L Prepare 2 Practice (P2P) course conducting mock interviews, reviewing resumes, speaking on panels and attending networking events as an integral part of the course;
—our alumni provided thought leadership as members of the Dean's Advisory Council (and its working groups), as well as the advisory boards to CIPLIT, Jaharis Health Law Institute and Schiller Ducanto and Fleck Family Law Center, who brought ideas (based on their vast experience) for curricular innovations and student professional development;
—our alumni have been coaching our student advocates (and providing terrific advice) as members of the Moot Court alumni board;
—this year our alumni have been active members of newly formed diversity council (chaired by Aurora Austriaco (BSC '87, JD '90)), which will be providing recommendations to the law school in the coming months to make us an even more diverse and inclusive community;
—this year we also created an alumni judges committee (chaired by Justice Margaret McBride ('76)), which will be working to engage our judges and create opportunities for our students as interns, externs and post-grad judicial clerks; and
—our alumni have given generously to the College of Law, making the goal of $3M this fiscal year an attainable one. This generosity has allowed us to award summer fellowships, bar awards, recruiting scholarships and program support.
Such great progress, and even more to do next year to harness the power of our network—the surging power of the DePaul Law family and our DePaul Law champions who make our students' dreams reality.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Have a wonderful summer,
Jenn