The Champion

Dean Roger A. Fairfax has said that one of his primary priorities is to provide “a world-class student and alumni experience” at American University Washington College of Law. What does this mean? From the moment students step onto campus through their retirement years, the WCL community seeks to remain a meaningful and impactful force in the lives of its graduates over the course of their careers.

Intellectual Property Alumna Propels Campaign to Support PIJIP

For two decades, as senior director of intellectual property policy at Microsoft Corp., Susan Mann, WCL/JD ’86, led the tech giant’s intellectual property policy advocacy in Washington, D.C., and helped forge the company’s partnership with American University Washington College of Law.

As a cornerstone of its engagement with the law school, the Microsoft Innovation and Policy Center in D.C. hosted an annual networking event that brought WCL alumni in intellectual property practice together with students in WCL’s pathbreaking Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property (PIJIP).

“PIJIP is an important and interesting program that has done great work and is going to continue to do great work,” Mann said of the internationally recognized research and education platform. In tandem with her retirement from Microsoft at the end of October 2022, Mann has ramped up her commitment to PIJIP, becoming the lead donor in a campaign to endow a $50,000 fund to advance the program’s work.

“PIJIP is a powerful supporter of the right-to-research, which has implications for machine learning and artificial intelligence,” Mann said. “It is important that we have responsible scholarship from programs like PIJIP and that students have access to programs that examine a responsible balance between user rights and intellectual property rights, between speech and intellectual property rights.”

WCL has one of the oldest intellectual property law programs in the nation, and PIJIP’s influential role on the global stage underscores the law school’s leadership in that area. PIJIP is an advocate of the right to research under copyright law and the proponent of a worldwide open-research network of researchers, libraries, museums, archives, and digital rights activists.

“What we’re doing at PIJIP is futureproofing copyright,” PIJIP Associate Director Sean Flynn has said. “Copyright is a barrier to doing the kind of research that people want to do. PIJIP is advancing the human right to research … and to have access to information.”

At American University Washington College of Law, our strength comes from our people — exemplary faculty, dedicated staff, talented students, and, of course, our extraordinary alumni.

WCL alumni are prominent across the legal landscape. They stand out in corporations, public interest law firms, in government agencies, and in tech firms. They work as public defenders and prosecutors, and are ensconced in human rights and civil rights organizations. They serve clients in small towns and big cities across the United States; they practice in countries around the world.

The financial support from our alumni is critical to our school’s mission of producing lawyers who Champion What Matters. The generosity of our alumni allows us to recruit and retain leading faculty and staff, expand diversity and access to legal education through scholarships, expand our tremendous programmatic offerings, and enhance our school’s impact on the lives of the many people our students serve

What your annual giving gift to WCL can do

• $10,000 funds a partial scholarship

• $5,000 funds a summer public interest stipend for a student

• $2,500 funds a Dean’s Fellow or a Writing Fellow

• $1,000 funds a career exploration lunch for 1Ls

• $500 funds a diversity outreach event through clinics and other experiential learning opportunities. We are grateful for your continued commitment to WCL through your giving.

However, the value of alumni engagement stretches far beyond philanthropy. Our alumni are pivotal in advancing the work, reputation, and student experience of this great institution. They are our ambassadors. Their successes demonstrate the power of a WCL education and inspire applicants to consider a WCL education. They are role models and mentors, they facilitate experiential learning opportunities for our students, and they provide our graduates with meaningful employment. Furthermore, their on-theground insight helps us ensure that WCL continues to prepare our students for the modern practice of law.

Ensuring that WCL provides a worldclass alumni experience is one of my top priorities, and we have begun to expand and strengthen our network of alumni. We want to elevate our law school as a lifelong resource for our graduates, to ensure that we are an asset to alumni at all stages of their professional careers.

I am truly excited about the increased engagement with our alumni. We are seeing more alumni at our events and public programs — both in the audience and as speakers and panelists. We are making it easier for our alumni to mentor students, serve on our advisory councils, and hire from within our WCL community. You will see more of our distinguished graduates in future issues of the newly redesigned The Advocate magazine and on our social media profiles.

Our alumni are champions of what matters in law, and their engagement with WCL is essential to advancing our school and its transformative contributions to our communities, our country, and our world.

Thank you for all that you have done, all that you are doing, and all you will yet do for the American University Washington College of Law.

Roger A. Fairfax Jr. Dean and Professor of Law American University Washington College of Law

John Sherman Myers Society

TO RECOGNIZE AND HONOR OUR MOST LOYAL DONORS TO WCL, the John Sherman Myers Society recognizes donors making annual contributions of $2,500 or more. The Myers Society was established to honor former Dean John Sherman Myers and his wife, Alvina Reckman Myers, who dedicated their professional lives and personal wealth to WCL and our students. Since its inception three decades ago, the Myers Society has had a visible impact on WCL students by providing critical funding for scholarships, technological developments, facilities, academic initiatives, and student services.