Susan Sturm

Susan Sturm is the George M. Jaffin Professor of Law and Social Responsibility and the founding director of the Center for Institutional and Social Change at Columbia Law School. Her work focuses on building “the architecture of full participation”: making education central for communities affected by the justice system, institutional change, transformative leadership, workplace equality, legal education, and inclusion and full participation in educational institutions. She collaborates with a wide variety of higher education and community based organizations and networks involved in initiatives aimed at increasing full participation, including JustLeadershipUSA, the Creating Connections Consortium, the New York Reentry Education Network, Aspen Ascend Network, College and Community Fellowship, LADO (Liberal Arts Diversity Officers), Imagining America, Rutgers Future Scholars, and University of Michigan. Sturm is the principal investigator for two Ford Foundation grants awarded to develop strategies for advancing post-secondary education for communities affected by incarceration, as well as immigrants and veterans, and for an Aspen Ascend grant to develop multi-generational strategies for advancing higher education for communities affected by the criminal justice system. She has co-chaired a working group on Transformative Leadership, as part of a Ford Foundation funded project on Building Knowledge for Social Justice. In 2007, she received the Presidential Teaching Award for Outstanding Teaching at Columbia. B.A., Brown, 1976 J.D., Yale, 1979.