Home

News

Useful Links

Case In Point

Downloads

FAQ

NJC Receives $25,000 Grant From the Robert Z. Hawkins Foundation

11/6/2007

RENO, NV – The National Judicial College (NJC) was recently awarded a $25,000 grant from the Robert Z. Hawkins Foundation to finish the classroom upgrade started early this year with a grant from the E.L. Cord Foundation. The Robert Z. Hawkins Foundation has been a supporter of NJC since 1982.

Once finished, the NJC’s five upgraded classrooms will feature state-of-the-art, computer-enhanced, audio-visual systems that support professional-level education and provide the highest quality judicial education available anywhere.
The Robert Z. Hawkins Foundation is known throughout northern Nevada. Formed in 1980 through the will of Robert Ziemer Hawkins, a longtime Reno resident, lawyer and successful inventor, the Foundation’s giving is geared toward charitable, religious, educational, scientific and literary organizations as well as groups that work toward preventing child and animal abuse.

For 44 years, the NJC has been offering courses to improve judicial productivity, challenge current perceptions of justice and inspire judges to achieve judicial excellence. With courses held onsite, across the nation and around the world, the NJC offers an average of 95 courses annually with more than 3,000 judges enrolling from all 50 states, U.S. territories and more than 150 countries. Since it opened, the NJC has awarded more than 79,000 professional judicial education certificates.

In 1986, the College and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges assisted the University of Nevada, Reno, in developing one of the nation’s first advanced degree programs for trial judges - the Master of Judicial Studies program. In 2001, the UNR Board of Regents approved a Ph.D. program. Both programs provide a formal academic setting in which trial judges can integrate technical and academic studies to attain an intellectual understanding of the American judiciary. As of Jan. 1, 2006, 100 judges have graduated from the Master of Judicial Studies program. Currently, there are 96 judges enrolled in the master’s program and 13 enrolled in the Ph.D. program.

The NJC is home to the National Tribal Judicial Center, the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Courts and Media and the International Project. It also houses technology-enhanced classrooms, a state-of-the-art model courtroom, modern seminar rooms, distance education facilities and a newly upgraded computer lab. The College’s curricula include a Seminar Series, made up of courses that provide judges the opportunity to study diverse and interesting topics at historically and culturally rich locations across the United States. There is also a wide selection of Web-based courses to choose from, enabling participants to learn a variety of topics online.

The National Judicial College has created judicial education endowment funds to enable individual states and courts to utilize the NJC’s services without straining their budgets. The College has an appointed 18-member Board of Trustees and it became a Nevada not-for-profit (501)(c)(3) educational corporation on January 1, 1978. Please visit the NJC website at www.judges.org for NJC news, ways to donate, course information and more. Or, call (800) 25-JUDGE for more information.