Dean Chen: Honored by Classmates for Public Service
As part of its 35th reunion weekend, the Dartmouth College Class of 1980 presented Ronald K. Chen, Dean of Rutgers School of Law–Newark, with its inaugural Parker A. Small Public Service Award. The award, named after a beloved member of the Class of 1980 who died in 2010 after a 21-year journey with brain cancer, recognized Dean Chen’s lifelong passion for social justice advocacy.
In accepting the award, Dean Chen credited Dartmouth with teaching him the value of diversity and importance of community. He said that while he and his classmates are now members of many other communities – “some of them defined by voluntary affiliation, some of them defined by common challenges” – it was through the Dartmouth community that he came to understand the “support, self-strength and, when needed, advocacy” that communities deserve and to which he has devoted his career.
Dean Chen graduated from Rutgers School of Law–Newark in 1983, served as law clerk to the Honorable Leonard I. Garth of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and then practiced with a large New York City firm until 1987, when he returned to the law school as a member of the faculty.
From 2006 until 2010 Dean Chen served as the Public Advocate of New Jersey. Prior to that, he was the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the law school. In addition to teaching law classes, Dean Chen has appeared numerous times in state and federal court litigating civil rights, civil liberties and constitutional law cases. He continues this work through the Constitutional Rights Clinic.
