{"id":16695,"date":"2020-07-01T09:32:40","date_gmt":"2020-07-01T14:32:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/?p=16695"},"modified":"2020-07-13T14:51:54","modified_gmt":"2020-07-13T19:51:54","slug":"anthony-niedwiecki-begins-serving-as-president-and-dean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/2020\/07\/01\/anthony-niedwiecki-begins-serving-as-president-and-dean\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Niedwiecki begins serving as president and dean"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left\">Anthony S. Niedwiecki, a longtime legal educator and activist on behalf of LGBTQ rights, began serving as president and dean at Mitchell Hamline School of Law on July 1.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-16697 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2020\/07\/Anthony-in-story-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2020\/07\/Anthony-in-story-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2020\/07\/Anthony-in-story.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m thrilled to be joining Mitchell Hamline,&#8221; Niedwiecki said. &#8220;This school is one of the leading innovators in legal education, and I admire its focus on real-world preparation, commitment to students, and connection to community. I look forward to helping us continue to be a force for justice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Previously dean\u00a0and\u00a0professor of law at\u00a0Golden Gate University School of Law\u00a0in San Francisco, Niedwiecki, 53, is the second president and dean at Mitchell Hamline, which was formed in 2015 through the combination of William Mitchell College of Law and Hamline University School of Law.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are so excited to have Anthony on board,&#8221; said Frank Harris, chair of Mitchell Hamline&#8217;s board of trustees. &#8220;He is a thoughtful and inclusive leader whose breadth of experience in clinical education, distance learning, skills instruction, and other areas critical to our mission will serve him well in this role.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Niedwiecki (pronounced ned WICK ee) has said one of his first priorities will be to expand the school&#8217;s staffing and programming around diversity, equity, and inclusion.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Students from all backgrounds should feel welcomed and supported at Mitchell Hamline,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Our job is to meet students where they are and equip them with a legal education so they can make the changes they desire in their own lives, their communities, and society as a whole.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Niedwiecki is the first openly gay president and dean at Mitchell Hamline or any of its predecessor schools, and one of few openly LGBTQ law school deans in the country. A native of Livonia, Michigan, he returns to the Midwest with his husband and partner of 18 years, Waymon Hudson.<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-max-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/434007115?h=c377757883&amp;dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Niedwiecki has spent 25 years working in the law. He started as an associate at two firms in Texas before moving into legal education in 1998. He has held law school faculty and administrative positions at Temple University, Arizona State University, Nova Southeastern University, and John Marshall.<\/p>\n<p>As\u00a0dean\u00a0at Golden Gate the past three years, Niedwiecki oversaw improvements in academic achievement, increased student diversity,\u00a0and\u00a0improved financial performance. He also expanded the number of online courses for J.D. students\u00a0and\u00a0began developing a\u00a0new\u00a0partially online J.D. program. Mitchell Hamline created the nation\u2019s first hybrid online\/on-campus J.D. program at an ABA-approved law school in 2015\u00a0and\u00a0is launching the latest evolution of that program\u2014a comprehensive, highly customizable blended-learning enrollment option\u2014this fall.<\/p>\n<p>For the last two decades, Niedwiecki has advocated for social and racial justice as an academic, elected official, and community activist. In 2007, he founded Fight OUT Loud, an organization dedicated to helping people counter discrimination\u00a0and\u00a0hate directed at the LGBTQ community,\u00a0and\u00a0he has received numerous awards for his advocacy on LGBTQ issues. He has served as city commissioner\u00a0and\u00a0vice mayor of Oakland Park, Fla., as well as a member of the Broward County, Fla., Resource Recovery\u00a0and\u00a0Human Rights boards.<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-max-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/434010060?h=002a5994f8&amp;dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The first member of his family to attend college, Niedwiecki earned a bachelor\u2019s degree in math\u00a0and\u00a0education from Wayne State University in Detroit,\u00a0and\u00a0he began his career as a high school\u00a0and\u00a0community college math teacher in North Carolina. He earned a J.D., magna cum laude, from Tulane Law School in\u00a0New\u00a0Orleans\u00a0and\u00a0an LL.M. in Legal Education from Temple University Beasley School of Law in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n<p>He takes over leadership of Mitchell Hamline from Peter B. Knapp, who served as interim president and dean in 2019-20 and has resumed his position on the faculty. The school&#8217;s first president and dean, Mark C. Gordon, served from 2015-19 and remains on the faculty.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/biographies\/person\/anthony-niedwiecki\/\">More on Dean Niedwiecki&#8217;s education, experience, publications<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ebar.com\/news\/news\/\/261505\">More on his history of advocacy for equality<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anthony S. Niedwiecki, a longtime legal educator and activist on behalf of LGBTQ rights, began serving as president and dean at Mitchell Hamline School of Law on July 1. &#8220;I&#8217;m thrilled to be joining Mitchell Hamline,&#8221; Niedwiecki said. &#8220;This school is one of the leading innovators in legal education, and I admire its focus on &hellip; <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/2020\/07\/01\/anthony-niedwiecki-begins-serving-as-president-and-dean\/\" class=\"more-link\">Anthony Niedwiecki begins serving as president and dean<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4881,"featured_media":16696,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[53],"class_list":{"0":"post-16695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-features","8":"category-news","9":"tag-anthony-niedwiecki","10":"entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4881"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}