Armed with a $20,000 grant from the Texas Bar Foundation, the Texas Wesleyan University School of Law created a new position for a Public Service Leadership Fellow.
Slated as a one-year, full-time position, the Fellow will help the dean of the law school and the assistant dean for student affairs in the law school's diversity programs and "identify, implement, and coordinate" such initiatives by the law school. The fellow will help promote awareness and initiate discussions on diversity issues among educators, community leaders, and legal practitioners. Besides developing the law school's pipeline initiatives, these measures will also increase the programs' outreach. Apart from this, she will also supervise the law school’s current pipeline programs.
These programs, popularly dubbed as 'pipeline initiatives', are the law school's efforts to develop participation of students from diverse backgrounds, as well as boost their persistence and success in middle and high schools. This is done with an aim to fuel student ambitions and enhance their capacity to gain a strong foothold in the legal profession.
These programs form an integral part of the law school’s diversity
commitments. The programs currently on at the law school included StreetLaw, High School Law Day, Teen Court, and several other mock trial days.
Interim Dean Cynthia L. Fountaine said with the induction of a full time Fellow to overlook its programs, the law school will now be able to expand its program to include other schools in the area. It will also allow the law students who participate in these pipeline initiatives "to provide more consistent programming to these area schools,"she added. These programs also educate the local public to understand the law school's activities, and the legal and the judicial system. On its part, the Texas Bar Foundation has awarded more than $9 million in grants to law-related programs since it was
established in 1965.