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Ave Law Alumni Info
last updated November 13, 2008
Welcome. This website is intended to provide information to alumni of Ave Maria School of Law. It is run by Matt Bowman, Class of 2003, and member of the Alumni Association Board of Directors.
I have created this website in my personal capacity. Some of the information posted here includes public communications, actions, or minutes of the Alumni Board. Those communications will be marked as having been approved by the Board. Everything else, unless otherwise indicated, is information that I post on my own initiative. -msb
Officially Approved Minutes of Alumni Board Meetings
The following are minutes officially approved by the Alumni Board, and not redacted by school officials.
October 2008 Meeting Minutes [PDF]
September 2008 Meeting Minutes [PDF]
August 2008 Meeting Minutes [PDF]
July 2008 Meeting Minutes [PDF]
June 2008 Meeting Minutes [PDF]
May 2008 Meeting Minutes [PDF]
April 2008 Meeting Minutes [PDF]
March 2008 Meeting Minutes [PDF]
Febuary 2008 Meeting Minutes [PDF]
January 2008 Meeting Minutes [PDF]
Past Officially Approved Minutes of Alumni Board Meetings
The following are minutes officially approved by the Alumni Board, and can also be found in their original form on the law school's website because they predate the school's decision to redact some minutes starting in January 2008.
Minutes of Annual All-Alumni Meeting, December 2007 [PDF]
The following are letters officially approved by the Alumni Board for publication to alumni.
Letter 1 Approved May 6, 2008
The Ave Maria School of Law Alumni Association Board of Directors would like to bring your attention to a fundraiser for the Lapas family. Vilius Lapas was a member of the inaugural 2003 class. The fundraiser’s purpose is to help the Lapas family with the costs and expenses associated with the medical care for Emilija Lapas, Vilius and Paulette’s twelve-year-old daughter who is fighting a rare form of cancer.
The fundraiser will be held in Fort Wayne , Ind., on June 28, 2008 and include: a benefit dinner, music, silent auction, activities for kids, a videotaped message from Jim Caviezel, and a raffle. For more information, to buy tickets, or donate, go to www.supporther.info
Please consider whether you are able to donate anything for the auction or make a monetary donation. Also, if you know someone who might be willing and able to make a donation to the auction, please pass this message along. All donations are welcome, and donors may be recognized or remain anonymous as they wish.
Emilija was diagnosed with a very rare malignant brain tumor in 2005. She received chemotherapy and radiation to the brain and was in remission for a year and a half. Unfortunately, in the fall of 2007, Emilija suffered a relapse. This time, the tumor appeared on the upper spine. Most of the tumor was surgically removed, and she receive additional chemotherapy followed by an autologous tandem stem cell transplant in New York City . Emijila finished the second part of the stem cell transplant just over a month ago. As part of her treatment, Emijila still has to receive radiation treatments to the brain and spine.
Letter 2 Approved May 6, 2008
Dear Board of Governors,
We write seeking information about grave matters affecting the future financial stability and accreditation of Ave Maria School of Law, based on significant recent changes in its plans to move to Florida, and on our school's apparent decline in U.S. News law school rankings even among the lowest tier of schools. We respectfully request that you respond as a Board by letter, and that your members be available for town hall meetings with alumni and students, which have been helpful in the past.
The school recently announced that you or your executive committee voted to move the school to the Vineyards property in Naples, Florida, instead of to Ave Maria Town, because of a shortfall of funds for the school's building in Ave Maria Town. In early 2007, when you voted to move the school to Florida, the announcement and related town hall meetings indicated that the decision to move would secure future funding for the school from the Ave Maria Foundation and real estate proceeds in Ave Maria Town, and publicity indicated that the school would move into a beautiful new building at Ave Maria Town.
The recent decision to move to Vineyards raises several questions that are vitally important to alumni and students, who sacrificially subjected their reputations and careers to the law school's future achievements. Was the 2007 decision to move to Florida based on promised funding for moving directly into a building at Ave Maria Town? If so, why is that promise not being fulfilled? If not, why did you decide to move without a secure promise for facilities, and did you receive any financial promises at all to recommend the move?
Why have you decided to move the school twice, rather than keeping it in its present location until the building at Ave Maria Town, and any other instability at Ave Maria Town and University, are secured? Would you have decided in early 2007 to move the school to Florida if the proposal was to move to Vineyards and only later to move to Ave Maria Town? Is there even now a promised date for moving to Ave Maria Town, or could the school be moving to Vineyards for the foreseeable future?
Mr. Monaghan recently testified in a deposition that there is a provision in the contract with the Barron Collier Co., stating that the law school must be located in Ave Maria Town to be a beneficiary of the projected profits from real estate sales in Ave Maria Town. Is there an exception to this rule for the Vineyards campus? If not, does this prevent the very source of funding that justified the decision to move to Florida? Does the law school's Vineyards location have any adverse effect on its ability to access funding?
How will accreditation and acquiescence be affected by deciding to move to Vineyards? What communications has the school had with the ABA about the move? When you decided that moving would likely receive acquiescence, did you rely on the proposed Ave Maria Town facilities, and if so, how does a double move alter that calculus? Will moving twice cause accreditation to be downgraded, or add years to the time before full accreditation can be restored, or require the accreditation process to begin again altogether? What effect will moving twice have on housing for faculty, staff, and students in between Vineyards and Ave Maria Town, and will that adversely impact faculty recruiting?
What impact will all these developments have on the vital statistics that inform law school rankings (faculty recruiting, student scores, peer review)? Have you explored or received from the Dean a specific plan to reverse the school's decline deeper into the rankings' fourth tier?
For the good of the school we ask you to open communications with alumni and students on these vital questions, by responding in a letter and scheduling regional meetings between Board of Governors members and alumni over the next few weeks. Finally, we would like to reiterate our long-standing request for an alumni seat on the Board of Governors to facilitate open communication. Thank you for your concern.
Yours truly,
Alumni Association Board of Directors of Ave Maria School of Law
cc: Alumni of AMSL
Letter Approved April 1, 2008
Dear Fellow Alumni,
According to our bylaws and Robert's Rules of Order, each month, after a motion and a vote by the entire Alumni Board, we publicly approve minutes that describe the discussion and decisions of the previous month's Alumni Board meeting. Historically, these minutes have been posted in the alumni section of the school's website.
At the January 2008 meeting, Dean Dobranski sent a message to the Alumni Board saying that he intends to edit and redact our monthly minutes at his sole discretion before permitting the minutes to be posted on the school's website. We believe it is contrary to our rules and to the public character of our meetings for any one member of this Board to claim the authority to unilaterally edit our meeting minutes. We further believe it is important that Alumni Association members continue to have access to unredacted versions of our monthly minutes in order to have an accurate understanding of the events of the meeting.
The Alumni Board has no website of its own and the Dean has refused to give the Board access to a website or email account by which we can provide information directly to you. Nevertheless, one of the Alumni Board members in his personal capacity has created a website where he can post information of interest to alumni. The website is www.avelawalumni.info and is run by Matt Bowman (Class of 2003). On it, you can find our monthly minutes starting with those of January 2008 (unredacted minutes from previous meetings are still available on the school's website). At www.avelawalumni.info, you will also be able to view messages approved by the Alumni Board, such as this one.
We wish you all a happy Easter season.
AMSL Alumni Association Board of Directors
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