Las Vegas, NV
Linda L. Ammons is dean emeritus at Widener University, and adjunct professor of law at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She served as counsel to the president of Widener for legal education, after retiring as associate provost and dean of the law school in 2014. She was the first woman and the first African American to lead the two-campus, two-state, Widener University School of Law, and was the senior African American female dean in the nation when she stepped down after serving eight years.
Ammons came to Widener in 2006 from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in Cleveland, Ohio, where she was associate dean and professor of law. During her 15 years at Cleveland-Marshall, she chaired and served on a number of university committees and taught Administrative Law, Legislation, Mass Communications Law, and Women and the Law. In 2006, the Cleveland-Marshall Alumni Association chose her as their Stapleton Award recipient. She was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame, November, 2020.
In addition, Ammons is a Distinguished Faculty member of the National Judicial College in Reno, Nevada, serving since 1993. In 2007, she was named a Senior Scholar in the Department of Health Policy at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, PA, and that same year was appointed by Pennsylvania State Treasurer Robin Weissmann to the e-Treasury Blue Ribbon Advisory Commission on Productivity Management. In 2010, she was named to the Legal Education Development Committee of the American Bar Association, and she served three years as the Chair of the Curriculum Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section of Legal Education & Admissions to the Bar. Ammons also served a three-year term on the Government Relations Committee of the Association of American Law Schools, and is a Life Member of the American Bar Foundation.
Ammons’s awards are numerous including the December, 2014, Top Woman in Business Award by Delaware Today Magazine, the March, 2013 Community Leadership Award from Best Buddies Delaware, the October 2013, Pennsylvania Multi-Cultural Leadership Award, the November, 2012, “Excellence in Education Award” from the Delaware Barristers Association, and from February 2012 to February, 2014, she has been included among “The Power 100” African American attorneys in the U.S. In October of 2011, she was honored with the Service to Children Award at the Christopher W. White Distinguished Access to Justice Awards program presented by the Delaware State Bar Association. Ammons has also received the Delaware Leadership Award from the American Council on Education, Office of Women in Higher Education. In August 2010, Senator Tom Carper forwarded Ammons’ name to the Department of Justice for consideration by the White House for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. In January 2010, Ammons was appointed by Governor Jack Markell of Delaware to be the special investigator in the case of the alleged child molestations by pediatrician Earl Bradley. Her work resulted in a package of twelve legislative reforms, nine of which were passed unanimously by the Delaware General Assembly. In August 2009, she was named among the 14 Most Influential People in Delaware by Delaware Today magazine. Her Board memberships include the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce serving as the chair of its ethics committee, WHYY TV and Radio of Philadelphia, Vegas PBS, and Christiana Hospital in Wilmington, Delaware.
Prior to joining the faculty at Cleveland-Marshall, Ammons served as executive assistant to former Ohio Governor Richard F. Celeste, from 1988 to 1991, advising him on legal and policy matters in the criminal justice, regulatory and administrative areas. A 1974 graduate of Oakwood College, and a 1997 alumna of the year, she was a TV anchor-person in Huntsville, Alabama, in the 1970’s, and worked for several media outlets.
A 1987 Ohio State University Moritz College of Law graduate, Ammons was selected out of 8,000 of her peers to be the recipient of the 2004-05 Moritz Alumni Society’s Community Service Award. She also holds emeritus status on the Moritz National Advisory Council, and is listed among Ohio State’s Distinguished Alumni.