The Bowen Law School Pathway Program was recently awarded the American Bar Association (ABA) 2024 Alexander Award for Excellence in Pipeline Diversity.
The Alexander Award, named after the life and legacy of two legal trailblazers, Raymond Pace Alexander and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, was created to honor an individual or organization that has demonstrated exemplary leadership and success in building educational pipelines to law school and the legal profession for underrepresented students.
“We are honored to receive the ABA’s Alexander Award for Excellence in Pipeline Diversity,” says andré cummings, Associate Dean for Faculty Development and co-founder of the Bowen Law School Center for Racial Justice and Criminal Justice Reform. “Our pathway program works diligently to ensure that underrepresented Arkansas communities and those that have been historically discriminated against have opportunities that they may not otherwise.”
Through the pathway program students receive expert Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) instruction, experience mock classes, and are offered an opportunity to visit the school, meet the dean, and learn more about the admissions process. Since its inception in 2019, the Bowen Law School Pathway Program has engaged more than 100 students, many of whom have enrolled at Bowen and other law schools throughout the country.
The award was accepted earlier this month by Associate Dean cummings and a former pathway program participant and current first-year law student, Lubna Yunus, at the annual ABA mid-year meeting in Louisville, Kentucky.
“I will never forget meeting Dean cummings for the first time,” Yunus says. “It was the best thing that could have ever happened to me in terms of pursuing my dreams of becoming a lawyer. Today, I am a first-year law student at Bowen, and every day I look forward to the day I will take the bar exam and become a very strong advocate for victims of domestic violence and children with special needs.”
