Online Education

Elizabeth Boals

Assistant Dean, Part-time and Online Education

Dean Elizabeth Ippolito Boals is the Assistant Dean of Part-time and Online Education and Faculty Director of the Criminal Justice Practice and Policy Institute at the American University Washington College of Law (AUWCL). Her areas of specialization include: Criminal Law and Procedure, Evidence, Trial Advocacy, Expert Testimony, and Jury Selection. Dean Boals is a recipient of the AUWCL Faculty Leadership Award, AU Outstanding Teaching Award and is a long-time member of the National Institute of Trial Advocacy (NITA) teaching faculty.

Before joining the faculty at AUWCL, Dean Boals defended the U.S. Department of Commerce on alleged violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act. She was a named partner at Lay, Ippolito & Dillard, PLLC, and prior to that, an attorney at Zwerdling, Paul, Leibig, Kahn, Thompson & Wolly, P.C. where she served as counsel to the International Union of Police Associations. Dean Boals began her legal career as an assistant public defender in the Office of the Public Defender in Alexandria, Virginia handling a felony caseload from trials in District Court through appeals to the Virginia Court of Appeals. Dean Boals has served as an elected member of the Virginia State Bar Disciplinary Committee.

Dean Boals’ publications include NITA case files and teaching manuals: State v. Sanchez, State v. Peyton, Addison v. Peyton, and Stanton v. Armstrong. She co-authored the second and third editions of Expert Testimony: A Guide for Expert Witnesses and the Lawyers Who Examine Them. Dean Boals lectures frequently both domestically and abroad on topics related to expert witness testimony and eye witness identification and trial skills. In particular, Dean Boals is on the faculty of the Comparative Advocacy; Mastering Trial Advocacy Course offered at Oxford University, Annual Georgetown Law Center/NITA Intensive Session in Trial Advocacy Skills; SEAK 21st Annual National Expert Witness Conference, and Expert Testimony and Trial Skills Conference in Santiago, Chile.

Cathy Schenker

Director of Online Learning

(202) 274-4065
schenker@wcl.american.edu

Catherine Schenker is the Director of the Office of Online Learning and a professorial lecturer at the American University Washington College of Law. Cathy currently oversees the creation of the Master of Legal Studies (MLS), a new online degree program being offered jointly by AUWCL and the Kogod School of Business. Once the program begins in April 2019, Cathy will teach Negotiation & Communication to the MLS students. Prior to July 2018, Cathy was the Director of Graduate Studies at AUWCL. In this role, she taught Legal Research & Writing to the international LL.M. students and was their academic and student affairs advisor. In addition, she directed the Legal Languages Program. In this role, she directed and taught in AUWCL’s English for Lawyers Program, which she created in 2007, and oversaw AUWCL’s Spanish for Lawyers courses. Cathy is interested in issues related to English for Specific Purposes and content-based language education as well as academic support programs. Prior to teaching at AUWCL, Cathy worked as a corporate associate at Hogan & Hartson LLP (currently Hogan Lovells). She received her BA, cum laude, from Yale University in History and International Studies, a JD from New York University School of Law, and a TESOL certificate from American University.

David Rose

Instructional Designer

(202) 274-4174
rose@american.edu

David Rose is an instructional designer at American University Washington College of Law, an OER Research Fellow for the Open Education Group, and an online instructor & curriculum designer for the Open Textbook Network. A graduate of Purdue University’s Master of Science in Education in Learning Design & Technology program, David comes to the law school from AU's Center for Teaching, Research & Learning (CTRL) where he ran Open American, AU’s OER grant program; managed EdSpace, AU’s WordPress installation available to faculty and students for open pedagogy projects like student-run course websites and ePortfolios; and taught the Faculty Online Training Course, a requirement for instructors teaching their first online course.

He has been working at the intersection of online and open education since 2012. Originally from Hawaii, David moved to Washington, DC in 2011 and joined a local nonprofit, the Saylor Academy, where he worked with university faculty around the world to develop college-level online courses that were free and open to all. He is drawn to work that increases access to quality education, and shifts power dynamics into the hands of learners. Visit his website for more information.