School of Law Director Connie Howes Wins Prestigious Award

The School of Law is blessed with the support of leading judges and practitioners who take time our of their busy careers to help guide Roger Williams Law on its upward trajectory.  (See previous blogs featuring Roscoe Howard, Robin Steinberg, and Judge Bruce Selya, for example).  One of the most recent additions is Constance A. (Connie) Howes, the President and CEO of Women & Infants Hospital, and Connie was recently named the 2009 Citizen of the Year by the March of Dimes Rhode Island.  This annual award recognizes a community leader who has worked to advance the March of Dimes’ mission of improving the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality.  In years past the award has gone to other influential Rhode Islanders such as Thomas Ryan, (CEO of CVS), Gov. Lincoln Almond, and philanthropist Alan Shawn Feinstein.

Connie, a graduate of Kenyon College and the University of Virginia School of Law, began her career as a corporate lawyer with Rhode Island’s oldest major law firm, Tillinghast, Collins & Graham.  After 17 years in practice, Connie moved full-time into health law and management, serving as VP and General Counsel for Care New England and in 2002 becoming the President and Chief Executive Officer of Women & Infants, the primary teaching affiliate of Brown University Medical School.  Under Connie’s leadership, W&I was named a “National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health” by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  She is the first woman to serve as president of Women & Infants since it was founded in 1884. 

Connie will receive this prestigious award at a March of Dimes gala at Blithewold Mansion in Bristol later this month.

Congratulations Connie!