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IU McKinney Dean Karen E. Bravo and 3L Anne Svoboda have been selected for IUPUI Women’s History Month Awards. The program is the effort of the campus Office for Women, which is directed by Kathleen S. Grove, J.D. ’77. The awards will be presented from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. March 26 in the Campus Center Theater.

Dean Bravo received the honor in the faculty category. She joined the faculty at IU McKinney in 2004 and has served the law school as Associate Dean for International Affairs from 2011 to 2013, Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and International Affairs from 2014 to 2018, and Vice Dean from 2018 until her appointment as Dean in 2020. She is the second woman and the first person of color to serve as dean of the law school. In 2012, Dean Bravo attempted to enroll in a leadership program on the IUPUI campus only to learn that it had been discontinued. This did not stop her. In 2013, she co-proposed and subsequently in 2015-2018 co-led IUPUI NextGeneration 2.0, the campus-wide leadership development and leadership succession-planning program dedicated to the preparation of women and underrepresented faculty and staff for positions of leadership and opportunities for advancement in higher education. The original leadership program was focused on faculty members. It was important to Dean Bravo to include staff members in the re-imagined program. Since the program’s inception, several of her female faculty and staff colleagues at IU McKinney have taken part in the initiative which is still going strong. Dean Bravo currently serves on the NextGeneration Advisory Board.

Svoboda received the honor in the graduate/professional student category. She discovered early how to advocate for herself and she’s in law school to ensure other girls who ran into the trouble she did during high school have an easier time. She became pregnant during high school and was actively discouraged from graduating. She was told it would be better for her to stay with her parents, drop out of school, earn a GED, and enter the workforce. Svoboda had other ambitions. She is in the less than 2% of teen mothers who go on to complete a four-year degree. There are no figures on teen mothers who earn law degrees. Svoboda began her advocacy while an undergraduate student at Indiana State University. She was an advocate for CHANCES Teen Court for two years, acting as a student attorney for first-time youth offenders in a mock courtroom setting to create plea agreements outside of the juvenile justice system. She has contributed over 300 hours of pro bono service during her time in law school, serving as a certified legal intern at the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office. She maintains a misdemeanor/level 6 felony caseload for Court 26, where she handles over 100 cases. She also served as a coordinator for the IU McKinney Re-Entry Clinic, helping with requests and filings for specialized driving privileges.