Two outstanding members of the UConn Law community received prestigious honors from the provost at the end of the 2024–2025 academic year. The Provost’s Awards for Excellence in Community-Engaged Scholarship (PAECES) recognize the outstanding contributions of faculty, staff, students, teams, and community partners who collaboratively address critical societal challenges through the creative and reciprocal exchange of knowledge and resources.

Jon Bauer, Clinical Professor of Law, Richard D. Tulisano’69 Scholar in Human Rights, and director of the School of Law’s Asylum and Human Rights Clinic received the Distinguished Faculty Instructor Award. Tanya Johnson, Research and Instructional Services Librarian, received the Emerging Staff Award.

Distinguished Faculty Instructor Award: Jon Bauer

Jon Bauer has spent more than two decades championing the rights of individuals fleeing persecution while transforming the lives of the students he mentors.

Since co-founding the Asylum and Human Rights Clinic in 2002, Professor Bauer has led a service-learning program that immerses law students in every aspect of asylum representation. His students have handled 185 asylum cases, securing legal protection for their clients in over 90% of the cases, a grant rate more than twice the national average. These victories have enabled more than 300 clients and members of their families from across the globe to rebuild their lives in safety and dignity.

“With unwavering dedication and visionary leadership, Professor Jon Bauer has built a legacy of advocacy and education that reaches far beyond the classroom,” says Dean Eboni S. Nelson. “His work through the Asylum and Human Rights Clinic has not only safeguarded the lives of hundreds but also empowered students to lead with empathy, skill, and purpose in the pursuit of justice.”

The clinic offers a 14-credit, year-long clinical experience where students take primary responsibility for client representation, including fact investigation, legal research, brief writing, and appearing at hearings before the Immigration Court or the U.S. Asylum Office. Clients represented through the clinic have fled persecution based on political beliefs, religion, gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Clinic alumni have served in the U.S. Departments of Justice, State, and Homeland Security, as well as in public interest law, private firms, and judicial clerkships.

Beyond the law school, Professor Bauer is an active leader in the community. His advocacy and work on boards spans the Connecticut Fair Housing Center, Connecticut Legal Services, the Hartford Immigration Court’s Pro Bono Committee, and immigrant rights coalitions. In 2019, the U.S. Attorney’s Office honored him with its Civil Rights Enforcement Award for decades-long advocacy to eliminate discriminatory mental health inquiries from the bar admissions process.

Emerging Staff Award: Tanya Johnson

Through visionary leadership and a commitment to equity, Research and Instructional Services Librarian Tanya Johnson has worked to expand access to justice in housing and to reimagine legal education.

Johnson envisioned and now leads the UConn Law Library Fair Rent Commission Project. She identified a significant challenge in response to a 2022 Connecticut law mandating municipalities to create Fair Rent Commissions (FRCs) to address tenant complaints about excessive rent increases: the lack of public access to FRC documentation and decisions. These materials were inconsistent or unavailable, creating barriers for tenants, attorneys, and advocates navigating the FRC process.

Her work created a publicly accessible repository within the Connecticut Digital Archive (CTDA), which offers access to meeting agendas, ordinances, and commission decisions. Johnson is developing a comprehensive research guide and a detailed index of decisions, allowing users to evaluate trends, understand how municipalities interpret the law, and better prepare for hearings.

“Tanya Johnson brings vision, innovation, and deep compassion to every facet of her work,” says Dean Nelson. “From transforming access to justice through groundbreaking digital archiving to reimagining legal education with creativity and care, she empowers students, strengthens communities, and reshapes the legal landscape with purpose and integrity.”

Johnson’s impact extends into the classroom, where she incorporates active learning and gamification to enhance legal research instruction. She is co-authoring a book on using games in legal education to make complex legal concepts more accessible and inclusive.

Her commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and justice (DEIAJ) is evident in her work with the DEIAJ Collection at the Law Library and student organizations. One of her most powerful contributions to these efforts was her 2023 article, “An Autoethnographic Exploration of Fatness in Law Librarianship,” which sparked meaningful conversations about representation, identity, and inclusion in the legal and academic communities.

Through courses like Diversity & Inclusion in the Legal Profession and Research for Social Justice, she prepares students to engage critically and compassionately with the legal system. Her work ensures that legal education at UConn is rigorous and responsive to the real-world issues that students—and their future clients—will face.