Professor Linda Greene, Evjue-Bascom Professor of Law, will serve as the representative of the American Association of Law Schools (AALS) on the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that advances the humanities.

The American Council of Learned Societies is a private, nonprofit federation of 70 national scholarly organizations created in 1919 to represent the United States in the Union Académique Internationale (International Union of Academies). The founders of ACLS—representatives of 13 learned societies—were convinced that a federation of scholarly organizations, most with open membership but all dedicated to excellence in research, was the best possible combination of America’s democratic ethos and intellectual aspirations. The constitution of the new Council stated its mission as “the advancement of humanistic studies in all fields of the humanities and social sciences and the maintenance and strengthening of national societies dedicated to those studies.”

Currently, it is the preeminent representative of American scholarship in the humanities and related social sciences. Together with the officers and other board members, the delegates form the “Council” of the ACLS that convene each year at an annual meeting.

ACLS carries out its mission through a variety of programs across many fields of learning. It awards peer-reviewed fellowships, convenes and supports scholarly conferences, sponsors reference works and innovations in scholarly communication, strengthens relations among learned societies, encourages the establishment of new societies, and represents humanistic scholarship in the U.S. and internationally.

During her two-year appointment, Greene will represent AALS at annual ACLS meetings and in other activities, ensuring that the AALS has a voice in ACLS deliberations and furthering the Association’s longstanding interdisciplinary tradition.

AALS President Professor Michael Olivas, the Bates Distinguished Chair in Law at the University of Houston Law Center, appointed Professor Greene based upon her long involvement in higher education leadership and her devotion to the development of interdisciplinary endeavor. While she served five years as Associate Vice Chancellor at the University of Wisconsin, Professor Greene oversaw the faculty strategic hiring. Her administrative portfolio included the UW Madison Cluster Hiring Initiative, a strategic hiring initiative that significantly expanded the number of faculty involved in collaborative cross-disciplinary teaching and research.

President Olivas stated that Greene’s “central administration experience across all disciplines and her leadership in the facilitation of interdisciplinary cooperation make Professor Greene the perfect person for this appointment.”

The previous AALS representative to ACLS was Professor Todd Rakoff, the Byrne Professor of Administrative Law, Harvard University Law School.

Greene looks forward to adding to this rich background in her new role as AALS representative: “I am honored to represent the American Association of Law Schools in this capacity. I look forward to sharing my experiences with the AALS Executive Committee and my law school colleagues.”

Submitted by UW Law News on February 10, 2011

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