Lifetime Philanthropy Award: The Impact of Sustained Service & Support

While every gift to American University Washington College of Law makes a difference, strengthening our programs, scholarship and student aid, a few alumni have distinguished themselves through decades of service and support that has had a profound and lasting impact.

In 2019, WCL chose to recognize the value and importance of sustained giving by awarding the Lifetime Philanthropy Award to Peggy Wakefield WCL/JD ’79 during the Legends & Leaders Dinner. Then the pandemic hit, and it has been three long years since we have been able to applaud our most dedicated donors and the talented faculty and students their gifts support.

We look forward to welcoming our finest WCL ambassadors back to campus in spring 2023, but in the meantime, we would like to collectively recognize the most recent recipients of the Lifetime Philanthropy Award, who were awarded privately. These alumni have each given generously of their time, service, and financial support for more than half a century, helping to shape and advance the law school we know and esteem today.

Retired Ambassador Robert F. Pence WCL/JD ’71, who received the Lifetime

Philanthropy Award in 2021, has a long and storied history of supporting students, faculty and facilities. He served on the AU Board of Trustees from 1989-98 and on the WCL Dean’s Advisory Council from 2004-18. In 2004, Pence and his wife Susan endowed the Pence Law Library, which has since been relocated within the Warren Building on the Tenley Campus. The couple also established the Robert and Susan Pence Endowment Fund and the Susan Pence Undergraduate Recognition Award, and they continue to support Yellow Ribbon Scholarships. As founder and chairman of The Pence Group, a full-service development company since 1977, Pence has made it a philanthropic priority to enhance access to legal education and to enrich the experience of WCL students.

In 2022, the Lifetime Philanthropy Award was presented to Herb Morgan

WCL/JD ’60, who has continued to serve the AU community for decades as a past president of the WCL Alumni Association, alumni campaign chair, and member of the AU Board of Trustees from 1989-95. In 1988, he made a major pledge and led alumni efforts to fund construction of The John Sherman Myers and Alvina Reckman Myers Law Center, and he continues to support scholarships. Regarding his award, Morgan said, “This is the most honorable thing that’s ever happened to me.” At the recommendation of his former colonel, Morgan came to WCL as a night student with a GED, 12 credit hours, and a full-time job as a special agent in the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations. Though he initially planned to return to his station in Arizona, after passing the DC and Virginia bar exams, he took a position with a title company in Arlington that he eventually bought. “I’m the luckiest country boy who ever walked in Virginia,” said Morgan, who has been sharing his good fortune to build a more just society ever since.