Profs. Clary, Welke to Receive University’s Graduate-Professional Teaching Award

Law School professors Brad Clary ’75 and Barbara Welke have been chosen to receive the 2018 University of Minnesota Award for Outstanding Contributions to Graduate and Professional Education. This honor, the University’s highest teaching award, was given to eight of the institution’s 3,800-plus professors. Recipients were chosen for excellence in instruction; involvement in students’ research, scholarship, and professional development; development of instructional programs; and advising and mentoring of students. Clary and Welke are the fourth and fifth members of the Law School faculty to receive the Graduate-Professional Award since its establishment in 1999; the others are Professors John Matheson (2008), Dale Carpenter (2014), and Ann Burkhart (2016).
 
“This well-deserved recognition for Professors Clary and Welke continues a Minnesota Law tradition of exceptional legal instruction,” said Dean Garry W. Jenkins. “It’s a tradition that arises from a culture of devotion to teaching—something all of us in the Law School community can take great pride in.”

Clinical Professor Brad Clary joined the Law School faculty full-time in 1999 after serving as an adjunct faculty member since 1985. In announcing his Graduate-Professional Award, the University provost’s office said, “In his 36 years of teaching here, Professor Clary has directed and developed the Law School’s legal writing, appellate advocacy, and trial practice programs. He has educated thousands of students, authored or co-authored five different teaching texts, and served the University, the state of Minnesota, and the national legal community in multiple ways. Teachers don’t come any better.”

Barbara Welke is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor who teaches in both the Law School and the Department of History and is co-director of the University’s Program in Law and History. In announcing her Graduate-Professional Award, the provost’s office noted, “In her 20 years at the University of Minnesota, graduate and professional teaching, advising, and mentoring have been central to Professor Welke’s mission. Through the Program in Law and History, leadership of the Hurst Institute, and other initiatives, she has made the University of Minnesota a premier institution for the training of legal historians.”

University professors who receive the Graduate-Professional Award—along with those who win the Morse-Alumni Award, which recognizes excellence in undergraduate teaching—become members of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers and have conferred upon them the title “Distinguished University Teaching Professor.” The Academy functions as a forum through which its members provide important leadership to the University community, serving as mentors, advisors, and spokespersons for the University’s teaching mission.