Six Students to Receive President’s Student Leadership and Service Award
University President Eric Kaler’s office has announced that six third-year Law School students—Drew Glasnovich, Kyle Kroll, Katarina Lee, Chelsea Lemke, Allison Rochford, and Marc Shinn-Krantz—are among the winners of the 2016 President’s Student Leadership and Service Award (PSLSA). The award is presented to approximately one half of one percent of the student body for their exceptional leadership and service to the University of Minnesota and the surrounding community. Honorees will be recognized at a Homecoming Week banquet in October.
During his time at Mondale Hall, Drew Glasnovich has made many notable contributions to his community. As a member of Law Council, he advocated for academic reforms, such as creating a central syllabi database. He has also worked with Facilities to secure an accessible all-gender restroom at the Law School. Drew advocated for clients in the Insurance Law Clinic, winning a half-dozen victories in coverage disputes with insurance companies. He serves as editor-in-chief of Law and Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice, and he has appeared as a lead actor in the two most recent Theatre of the Relatively Talentless (TORT) productions. He has interned with the U.S District Court in St. Paul and the EEOC in Minneapolis.
Kyle Kroll’s leadership roles at the Law School include the presidency of Professional Student Government, the University-wide organization that represents more than 10,000 professional students. This year, Kroll also served as the VIP liaison and outreach director for TORT, an SSG student instructor in Civil Procedure I and Property, a voting member of the University of Minnesota Alumni Association’s board of directors, an online managing editor for the Minnesota Law Review, and an admissions ambassador. He successfully argued at the Minnesota Court of Appeals in a pro bono unemployment compensation appeal, a case he will continue to assist on as it proceeds to the Minnesota Supreme Court this summer. In past years, he has also been the Law School’s student senator and the Law Council’s representative on the University Student Legal Service’s board of directors. This is Kroll’s second PSLSA; he won the honor last year as well.
In addition to receiving the PSLSA, Katarina Lee was a finalist for the Mary A. McEvoy Public Engagement and Leadership Award. Her leadership roles at the Law School include serving as student director of the Maynard Pirsig Moot Court, student director of the Community Practice and Policy Development Clinic, and student managing editor for Constitutional Commentary. She was the special events coordinator for the Health Law and Bioethics Association (HLBA) during her 2L year and co-chair of HLBA this year. Lee was also the vice president/programming of the St. Thomas More Society, a member of the Commencement Committee, and a representative at the 59th session of the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations. She has recently volunteered for the Minneapolis court monitoring and judicial policy nonprofit WATCH and taught health care ethics as an adjunct professor at St. Catherine University.
Chelsea Lemke has served as vice president of Law Council, fundraising chair of the Minnesota Justice Foundation student board, and member and student director of the Civil Rights Moot Court team. During her 2L year, she was a certified student attorney with the Criminal Justice Clinic, and she currently serves as the clinic’s student director. She has also worked as a student attorney with the office of the Hennepin County Public Defender and the Legal Rights Center in Minneapolis. She organized the Law School’s 2016 MLK Raise the Bar Day of Service, achieving a 400% participation expansion over last year and forging new partnerships with several other University departments. She has also developed life/balance and mental health resources in Mondale Hall, including establishing a pilot program that brings Boynton Health Service’s Pet Away Worry and Stress (PAWS) program to law and non-law students on a regular basis.
As vice president of development for the Asylum Law Project, Allison Rochford initiated the group’s Washington, D.C., trip. As a 2L, she was the Women Law Student Association’s bookroom coordinator, and she served as co-chair of the Health Law and Bioethics Association for the last two years. During her 3L year, as lead symposium editor for Law and Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice, she managed the “Playing with Pride: LGBT Inclusion in Sports” symposium; this summer, Law and Inequality will publish the seminar speakers’ scholarship. During her 2L and 3L years, along with Katarina Lee, Rochford helped start a new Law School clinic, the Community Legal Partnership for Health. The new law clinic operates in partnership with the Phillips Neighborhood Clinic (PNC), a student-run free medical clinic in a low-income neighborhood of Minneapolis. As student directors, Rochford and Lee have expanded the legal services available to PNC’s medical clients.
Marc Shinn-Krantz has served as president of the Amnesty International-Legal Support Network student group, lead managing editor of the ABA Journal of Labor & Employment Law, a legal writing instructor, and research advisor to Humphrey Fellows in the Law School’s Human Rights Center. Through the Community Mediation Clinic, he mediated disputes in Hennepin County’s Harassment Court and Housing Court, and he coordinated the Conflict Resolution Center’s outreach to the Minneapolis Police Department. Shinn-Krantz also externed for U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson and volunteered in Minneapolis high schools through the Open Doors to Federal Courts Program to promote careers in law. After his 1L year, he worked at the Minnesota Disability Law Center, a division of Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid. After his 2L year, he worked for the Prison Law Office in California, advocating for prisoners with disabilities and jail inmates held in solitary confinement.
