The Michael A. Olivas Award for Outstanding Leadership in Diversity and Mentoring in the Legal Academy will be awarded to the AALS faculty member who most vividly exemplifies Professor Olivas’s devotion to mentoring and diversity. The recipient will be a faculty member with an outstanding record of mentoring junior and aspiring faculty from underrepresented communities and otherwise promoting diversity, inclusion, and equity in the legal academy.

The Clyde Ferguson Award honors an outstanding law teacher, who, in the course of his or her career, has achieved excellence in the areas of public service, teaching, and scholarship, particularly law teachers who have provided support, encouragement and mentoring to colleagues, students and aspiring legal educators. The Derrick Bell Award honors a junior faculty member who, through activism, mentoring, colleagueship, teaching or scholarship, has made an extraordinary contribution to legal education, the legal system, or social justice.

The AALS Section on Pre-Law Education and Admission to Law School has developed five awards to recognize individuals, programs, and organizations that further the Section’s mission of bettering legal education and increasing diversity in the legal profession.
• Excellence in Pre-Law Advising Award
• Up and Comer Award
• Unsung Hero Award
• Programmatic Change-Maker Award
• Organizational Change-Maker Award

The award recognizes innovative contributions to the inclusion of LGBTQ+ people in the legal academy and profession more broadly. The Section especially seeks nominations that focus on the inclusion of LGBTQ+ students, before, during, and after their legal education. The Section will give two awards, one individual award and one institutional / program award.

Increasing diversity in the legal profession demands workplaces expand opportunities for and contribute to the success of underrepresented students including racial and ethnic minorities, students with disabilities, and students who identify as LGBTQ+, by creating an educational pipeline that supports students into and through law school and into the legal profession. The Alexander Award was created to honor an individual or organization that has demonstrated exemplary leadership and success in building such an educational pipeline.

Each year, this award honors up to five outstanding women lawyers who have achieved professional excellence within their area of specialty and have actively paved the way to success for other women lawyers. These women demonstrate excellence in a variety of professional settings and personify excellence on either the national, regional, or local level.

The ABF William H. Neukom Fellows Research Chair in Diversity and Law is a year-long visiting position. The Neukom Chair is an outstanding scholar with a distinguished record of scholarship in law and the social sciences who conducts empirical research on diversity and law, broadly conceived.

This award from the American Sociological Association honors the intellectual tradition of Oliver Cox, Charles S. Johnson, and E. Franklin Frazier, who placed their scholarship in service to social justice with an eye toward advancing the status of disadvantaged populations. Their scholarship was not limited to just the gathering of more data, but it was about attempting to better conditions globally.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award is presented annually to the person or persons who have demonstrated leadership and volunteerism while making significant contributions in the areas of: promoting peace, understanding, and improving communication & cooperation between diverse populations in Dane County.

The EDUCAUSE Awards Program recognizes professional accomplishments in higher education IT from technology, academic, industry, and campus leaders. There are four awards available: The Leadership Award, the Community Leadership Award, the DEI Leadership Award, and the Rising Star Award.

NAWL gives numerous awards to law students, legal professionals and attorneys who have excelled the previous year in their field via writing, professional achievement or by advancing diversity in law and in society.

The PLEDGE Fellowship is an 18-month professional development program and intervention-based research project sponsored by AccessLex Institute and the Southern Education Foundation. The fellowship targets experienced law school administrators, faculty members, or other similarly situated and experienced professionals. Teams of two fellows will undertake intervention-based research projects, called Capstones, focusing on one of the following three topical strands: Admission and Access, Academic Performance, or Bar Exam Performance

The Diversity & Inclusion Award celebrates an individual who contributes to and enhances diversity and inclusion within the Wisconsin legal profession.

The Distinguished Teaching Awards Committee invites nominations of faculty members for UW–Madison and UW System distinguished teaching awards. These awards recognize exemplary achievements in teaching.
The awards are open to any tenure-track or tenured faculty members, regardless of specialty or rank:
• Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award: excellence in teaching (5 awarded)
• Chancellor’s Inclusive Excellence Award: achievements in diversity and inclusion (2 awarded)
• Chancellor’s Teaching Innovation Award: innovation in approaches to learning
• Class of 1955 Teaching Excellence Award: assistant or associate professor, significant teaching contributions to undergraduate students
• Excellence in Community-Based Learning Teaching Award: meaningful community engagement in courses designated as community-based learning through the Morgridge Center
• William H. Kiekhofer Teaching Award: College of Letters and Science assistant or associate professor, excellence in teaching
• Emil H. Steiger Teaching Award: junior faculty member, excellence in teaching
• Van Hise Outreach Teaching Award: excellence in outreach teaching

This award recognizes members of critical UW Madison campus partners that contribute to an inclusive campus community for students with disabilities.

The annual Outstanding Women of Color Awards acknowledge and honor women of color among UW–Madison’s faculty, staff, students (undergraduate or post-baccalaureate) and in the greater Madison community:
• Whose advocacy, activism, or scholarship has fostered social justice and organizational change;
• Who have created positive transformation within their institutions and/or the community to achieve the goals of equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging;
• Whose efforts are improving the climate for, or status of, people of color

Slesinger Awards recognize mentoring of women, trans, or non-binary faculty on the tenure track. Nominations from a group of writers or a single writer are welcome; however, a collective nomination of a mentor who has supported more than one protégé is looked on favorably. The most successful nominations clearly articulate how a mentor’s efforts have had a positive impact in the life and career of the protégé(s) and/or have had a lasting impact on the institution.

These awards recognize people, units, and initiatives whose work has fostered greater access and success for students who are members of historically underrepresented populations (including African American, Native American, Hispanic/Latino, Asian American, and Southeast Asian), first-generation and/or economically disadvantaged.
Nominees’ work must demonstrate:
• Sustainable positive impact on equity and diversity, leading to positive university change
• Accountability demonstrated through routine assessment and use of feedback loops to promote forward movement on equity and diversity goals
• Intersections across multiple dimensions of diversity
• Collaborations with other units, departments, or communities, both within the university and beyond

Successful candidates will be LGBTQ+ people or their allies whose contributions have advanced the work of diversity, equity, and inclusive excellence in the following ways:
• Whose advocacy, activism, or scholarship has fostered social justice and organizational change
• Who have created positive transformation within their institutions and/or the community to achieve the goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion
• Whose efforts are improving the climate for, or status and visibility of, LGBTQ+ people

The Outstanding Women of Color in Education Award honors women of color from around the state for their leadership in making significant and lasting contribution to their campuses, their communities, or both. Successful candidates will be women of color whose contributions have advanced the work of diversity, equity, and Inclusive Excellence. UW System faculty, staff, student, or community members are eligible.

Awards are given to individuals and organizations that have demonstrated a significant contribution toward creating a diverse and inclusive business/academic/social community though the implementation of policies, procedures, initiatives, and/or programs.