Cabinet Members - Carol Chomsky
I have taught at the University of Minnesota Law School since 1985, where my recent courses have included Contracts, Sales, American Legal History, and the Judicial Externship Program. My publications have focused on the law of contracts and sales of goods, the history of women lawyers, American Indian legal history, and late nineteenth century American legal history. Currently I am writing about the history of Minnesota’s women lawyers, based on oral histories I conducted in recent years. I have worked extensively on teaching and learning issues at the University, serving for five years as Coordinator of the University of Minnesota's Early Career Teaching Program: Pursuing Excellence in Multicultural Education, for the past three years as Co-Coordinator of the Multicultural Teaching and Learning Fellowships sponsored by the Center for Teaching and Learning, and conducting CTL workshops on learning assessment and teaching in professional schools. I also co-direct the Law School’s Structured Study Group Program, designed to offer active learning experiences for first year law students in classes led by upper class student instructors.
My engagement with women’s concerns at the University began formally with membership on the Commission on Women in 1992 and continued with my service on the Executive Committee and Transition Steering Committee of the Commission as it became the Office for University Women. I have been actively involved in faculty governance since 1994 when I became a member of the Senate Committee on Faculty Affairs. Since that time I have also served on the Senate Committee on Equity, Access and Diversity, the Tenure Committee, and the Committee on Committees, and in 2006-2007 I will be chair of the Faculty Consultative Committee. Since the early 1990s I have been an active member of the Society of American Law Teachers, an organization dedicated to issues of multiculturalism and equal justice in and outside the academy, serving on the Board of Governors since 1995 and as co-President in 2000-2002. I was President of Minnesota Women Lawyers in 1993-94 and served on the Minnesota Women Lawyers Task Force on the Status of Women in the Legal Profession.
I received a B.S. degree from Brown University and a J.D. degree, summa cum laude, from Georgetown University. Before beginning my teaching career at the University of Minnesota, I clerked for Judge Spottswood W. Robinson, III, of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and worked for law firms in Moorhead, Minnesota and Washington, D.C.
I live in Minneapolis with my husband, Steve Liss, who is Director of Government Affairs for the Minneapolis Public School District. Our daughter is a junior at South High in Minneapolis and our son is studying mechanical engineering at the University of Washington.