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FeedPeople of Influence
Who has clout? There’s a new generation of movers and shakers emerging who are shaping policies and making things happen. Here are 14 to watch.
(page 5 of 13)
Linda Ammons
Law
As an associate dean at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in Ohio, Linda Ammons recognized a unique job situation developing 400 miles southeast. She knew Delaware’s reputation as a corporate leader, and she’d heard of its bustling healthcare industry. Widener University School of Law, which needed a new dean, happened to have the nationally recognized Institute of Delaware Corporate and Business Law and a renowned Health Law Institute.
“One of the many reasons I selected Widener,” Ammons says, “was the uniqueness of that situation and those connections throughout Delaware.”
Ammons is the first woman and the first African American to lead the Widener University School of Law, and one of only three African American women in the nation serving as dean of a law school. She is not only charged with training new lawyers, but also growing the school. Under her watch, many new initiatives have blossomed. The Widener Law Jurist Academy, sort of a training camp for prospective law students, wrapped up its second session this summer.
“Students from UD, DSU and all over are underrepresented in the legal profession, so we reach out during their last year of college to bring them in to show them a taste of what legal education is all about,” Ammons says.
This spring she oversaw the launch of Widener’s Environmental Law Center, which will harness the environmental law faculty to improve environmental, energy, and climate-change programs and policies in Delaware and Pennsylvania.
“The seed for many of these initiatives were planted before I got here,” Ammons says. “But I was the gardener who had to come in and rearrange and cultivate what had been sewn.”
Page 6: Chris Saridakis | Media
Reader Comments:
I have the opportunity to work with Mr. Saridakis at Gannett and your article nailed it. He is the single most important person in our company. In his short tenure here, he is already changing the culture and moving us forward. Delaware should be proud to have him as a citizen of our state!
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I know both Saridakis and Schwartzkopf and these are two fine individuals and have a great deal of respect for them as well as all the 15 people you chose. Congratulations!