On Sunday, August 15th from Widener Law’s Harrisburg campus will hold a “Welcome to the Profession” event for the incoming 1st-year class of approximately 180 students. The Delaware campus will follow with a similar event on the evening of Monday, August 16th.<br><br>The annual program kicks off the university’s orientation period and serves to introduce students to the concept of professionalism, as it applies to everything from conduct in class and toward their peers to proper business attire. It signals to the students that they are entering a professional school – not a fifth year of college. Widener Law Dean <a href="/Academics/Faculty/ProfilesDe/AmmonsLinda.aspx">Linda L. Ammons</a> started the program in 2007.<br><br>In Harrisburg, the event will be preceded by registration from 3-4 p.m., followed by the welcoming program from 4-5 p.m., and a reception from 5-6 p.m. The event will take place in Administration Building room A180 and will feature welcoming remarks and a faculty introduction by Dean Linda L. Ammons. Sean Welby, class of 1992, will offer an alumni welcome, and <a href="/CampusLife/ActivitiesandOrganizations/MootCourtHonorSocietyHarrisburg.aspx">Student Bar Association</a> President Devyn Zachary will also speak. Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice <a href="/Academics/Faculty/ProfilesHbgAdj/SaylorThomas.aspx">Thomas G. Saylor</a> will administer the affirmation of professionalism and then offer remarks.<br><br>“The event is part of a trend in law schools,” Dean of Students <a href="/Academics/Faculty/ProfilesHbg/SealingKeithE.aspx">Keith Sealing</a> said. “We perceive the need to inculcate feelings in students that they are entering a profession – above and beyond going to a fifth year of college.”<br><br>In Delaware, the “Welcome to the Profession” event will take place at the grand ballroom of the Double Tree Hotel on the Concord Pike, located near the campus. As in Harrisburg, Dean Linda L. Ammons will open the program. She will be followed by class of 1991 graduate Renae Axelrod, who will provide the alumni welcome, and Damiano Del Pino, president of the <a href="/CampusLife/ActivitiesandOrganizations/StudentBarAssociationDelaware.aspx">Student Bar Association</a>. Associate Dean for Student Academic Affairs <a href="/Academics/Faculty/ProfilesDe/GoldbergSusanL.aspx">Susan L. Goldberg</a> will then offer her remarks before turning the program over to Delaware Superior Court Judge William C. Carpenter Jr., class of 1976, who will administer the affirmation of professionalism.<br><br>The Honorable Thomas G. Saylor is Widener’s jurist in residence for the coming year. Prior to his election to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in 1997, Saylor served on the Superior Court of Pennsylvania from 1993 to 1997. He was first deputy attorney general for Pennsylvania from 1983 to 1987 and served as director of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Consumer Protection from 1982 to 1983. Saylor received his law degree from Columbia University School of Law in 1972 and his LL.M. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2004.<br><br>A 1976 graduate of Widener Law, the Honorable William C. Carpenter, Jr. was appointed to the Superior Court of Delaware in 1993 by Governor Thomas R. Carper. Governor Ruth Ann Minner reappointed him in 2005. An adjunct professor on Widener Law’s Delaware campus, Carpenter serves on the Executive Committee of the National Conference of State Trial Judges and is a member of American Bar Association, the Delaware Bar Association, American Judicature Society, the American Inns of Court. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Blood Bank of Delaware, YMCA of Delaware, the American Red Cross and the DuPont Country Club.