University Park

Trustees elect Baldwin as first African American woman to chair board

University Park, Pa. -- In a groundbreaking decision for the leadership of one of America's largest and most comprehensive universities, Penn State's Board of Trustees has elected Cynthia A. Baldwin, judge in Pennsylvania's Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, as chair of the 32-member governing body.

Baldwin, the first African American female judge elected to the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, also becomes the first African American woman to preside over the University's Board of Trustees in the 149-year history of the institution.

A gubernatorial appointee to the Board, Baldwin was first elected vice chair of the Board in 2001, and was re-elected in 2002 and 2003.

She received both her B.A. in English and M.A. in American literature from Penn State, and her J.D. from Duquesne University School of Law, and holds an adjunct law faculty post at Duquesne University. She served as chair of Penn State's international alumni association from 1991-1993, and was named a Distinguished Alumna of the University in 1995 and Alumni Fellow in 2000.

A seasoned attorney, Baldwin has been associated with several law firms and served as attorney-in-charge in the Bureau of Consumer Protection in the Office of the Attorney General of Pennsylvania. She is a member of the Civil Litigation Section of the Allegheny County Bar Association and of the Pennsylvania Bar Association where she served on the Board of Governors and in the House of Delegates. A Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania, Baldwin has been honored as Woman of the Year in Law and Government by Vectors/Pittsburgh.

Baldwin was chosen as a Fulbright Scholar for the summer of 1994 and lectured at the University of Zimbabwe Law Faculty in Constitutional Law and Jurisprudence. While there, she assisted in the development of a trial advocacy program and interacted with the members of the Supreme Court on constitutional issues in the cases coming before them.

In the summer of 1995, Baldwin was on a team sponsored by the American Bar Association, National Judicial Conference and D.C. Superior Court, which conducted judicial education programs in Malawi, Uganda and Tanzania. In 1998, Baldwin was the only non-federal judge chosen as part of a national team of five judges to go to mainland China to do seminars for their judges, law professors and students. The group was sponsored by the National Committee for U.S.-China Relations and the United States Information Agency.

In addition to her leadership role at Penn State, Baldwin is extremely active in other community endeavors through her service on several non-profit boards. She was a gubernatorial appointee to the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, serving from 1990-2002, and is a past member of the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing. In May 2003, the Mental Health Association of Allegheny County awarded Baldwin the 2003 Espirit Children's Service Award for her role in the lives of children with emotional/behavioral problems.

Baldwin is the wife of Arthur L. Baldwin and mother of two adult children.

For photos of Baldwin, go to live/still_life/2004_01_23_bot/index.html

Last Updated March 20, 2009

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