10-23-2022 W2W - Flipbook - Page 19
PHOTO BY LLOYD FOX
Renée McDonald Hutchins
dean, University of Maryland Carey School of Law
“Community, community, community,” Renée
McDonald Hutchins said with gusto. “Community
is the bedrock to all of the other work that we do.”
In Hutchins first term as dean at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law this fall,
her main goal is to bring back school spirit, the
kind she remembers fondly from when she was
a faculty member at the college. She’s excited to
again overhear students talking about their favorite classes in the hallway and to watch faculty and
staff members connect with pupils throughout
the building. Interactions like these faded with
the COVID-19 pandemic, she said.
On Tuesdays, she’s starting up Spirit Day,
encouraging all to wear the college’s T-shirts.
She thinks it will be an opportunity to show the
strength of their numbers in the law school.
Michael Millemann, the Jacob A. France
Professor of Law at Carey, taught with Hutchins
at the law school in the early 2000s. He said her
engaging personality always combined learning
and fun in the classroom, something he knows
she’ll carry into her role as dean.
“She really develops these wonderful relationships with students, staff, faculty, alumni,” Millemann said. “I mean, she really is a perfect dean.”
A native New Yorker, Hutchins attended Yale
Law School, worked as a lawyer in trial and appellate courts, and later earned a position teaching
law at New York University. From there, she
worked as a Carey School of Law faculty member.
In 2019, she became the dean of the University of
the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School
of Law.
Hutchins, who lives in Silver Spring, Maryland,
enjoys spending time with family and hiking on
Sundays. And each day, she wakes up hoping the
new Wordle puzzle is already out for her to solve.
— Sabrina LeBoeuf
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