Professor Morris Collin Named 2009 Civic Engagement Award Winner

April 06, 2009

Robin Morris Collin

Willamette Law Professor Robin Morris Collin has been named a 2009 Oregon Civic Engagement Award Winner by Oregon Campus Compact, a statewide organization that promotes civic engagement and community partnerships with higher education. Morris Collin will receive the Judith Ramaley Faculty Award for engagement in sustainability at the organization’s fourth annual award ceremony later this month. The award recognizes excellence in faculty leadership on sustainability issues both on campus and in the community.

In 1993, Morris Collin became the first law professor to teach sustainability at an American law school. She joined the Willamette law faculty in the fall of 2003 and later helped develop the Certificate Program in Sustainability Law, which she now directs. She also was a founding member of Oregon Lawyers for a Sustainable Future. A descendant of a long line of African-American civil rights activists, Morris Collin is a writer, speaker and advocate for environmental justice. Her most recent work, a three-volume encyclopedia of sustainability, will be released later this year.

“This award appropriately recognizes Robin’s early vision of sustainability — well before the term entered the public lexicon — and her leadership role since then,” said Dean Symeon C. Symeonides in congratulating Morris Collin.

The fourth annual Oregon Civic Engagement Awards will be held Thursday, April 23, 2009, at The Ace Hotel in Portland. Award winners will present their work at a Sustainability Forum at 3:30 p.m. in the US Bank Room of the Central Library. The awards reception will begin at 5:30 p.m. For more information, visit www.oregoncampuscompact.org/CivicEngagementAwards.htm.