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Professor Cynthia Baker Named to Indiana’s Commission for Higher Education
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels recently named the law school’s Cynthia Baker, Clinical Associate Professor of Law & Director, Program on Law and State Government, to the state ’s Commission for Higher Education (ICHE). The Commission, which was formed as a coordinating agency in 1971, helps to plan and coordinate Indiana’s state-supported system of postsecondary education, focusing primarily on public higher education, but also considering issues regarding K-12 standards and testing, the Education Roundtable, Department of Workforce Development efforts, and the State Student Assistance Commission of Indiana . More information on the ICHE can be found at: http://www.in.gov/che/2375.htm .

Cynthia Baker joined the law school in 1997 as the first Director of the Program on Law and State Government (PLSG). Under her leadership, the PLSG has substantially expanded experiential learning opportunities for students interested in the confluence of law and state government. Her primary professional responsibilities include serving as faculty advisor to the PLSG fellows and teaching the PLSG Externship Course, State and Local Government Law, and Legal Aspects of Government Finance. With the help of a grant from the United States Department of Education, she established the state's first interdisciplinary public policy mediation course for judges, community leaders, lawyers, and law students. Baker currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Government Practice Section of the Indianapolis Bar Association, as a co-chair of the State Administrative Law Committee of the ABA's Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, and has served several appointments as a member of Indiana's Code Revision Committee. In 2005, Baker was appointed as Clinical Associate Professor of Law.

Before joining the law school, baker was a Section Chief of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management's (IDEM's) Office of Legal Counsel and also served as legal counsel to IDEM's Office of Solid and Hazardous Waste Management. Prior to her work at IDEM, she was a judicial clerk to the Hon. Robert D. Rucker of the Indiana Court of Appeals, now and Associate Justice on the Indiana Supreme Court. She earned her J.D. from Valparaiso School of Law where she served as editor of the Valparaiso Law Review and graduated magna cum laude.

Baker's academic interests include public education law, regionalism, mediation as a public policy tool, and government finance.