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This summer, the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law Board of Visitors elected Alicia L. Wilson ’07, vice president for civic engagement and opportunity at Johns Hopkins University, as board chair. The Board of Visitors is a collaborative forum and professional resource providing insight and support to the dean on a range of issues critical to the continued growth and success of Maryland Carey Law. It functions as an advisory body with a strong professional and philanthropic commitment to the school and as an important liaison to the legal and business communities.
Wilson is a prominent member of the Baltimore community who has held a variety of leadership positions in higher education, financial services, community development, and private law practice. She has served on the Board of Visitors since 2018.
For this Q&A, Wilson spoke with Maryland Carey Law editor Wanda Haskel to share her vision and priorities for the board and why she is one of Maryland Carey Law’s most enthusiastic supporters.
What are some of your top priorities as board chair?
I'm thrilled to be chair of the Board of Visitors, and my overarching goal as I embark upon my chairmanship is to support and harness the board’s incredible talent, expertise, and commitment to ensure that it continues to serve as an indispensable resource to the dean, to students, and to faculty. Three of my top priorities are to help our students obtain clerkships, jobs, and internships; to enable our faculty to engage in robust and innovative scholarship; and to support the dean and her audacious strategic vision for the law school and for legal education.
What drew you to attend Maryland Carey Law as a student?
First, the law school is located in the place of my first love—Baltimore—and I always knew that I wanted my primary zone of impact to be in Baltimore and Maryland. The second is the people. I admired, even in undergrad, and even much younger, so many of the faculty. In my mind, they were freedom fighters. Being instructed by people of that caliber was wildly attractive to me. And then I got to know so many alums, even as an undergrad, who were giving back to the community, giving back to students and to the profession. Being part of that community drew me to attend Maryland Carey Law, and it is the choice that I’d make every time.
What is your favorite event to attend year after year at Maryland Carey Law?
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I always enjoy a blend of events that allow me to reconnect and forge new partnerships with my fellow alums. I love the Crab Feast; I love Alumni Weekend. I also enjoy opportunities to engage with students, so I'm always excited to attend Networking 101 and the MPILP (Maryland Public Interest Law Project) auction, but also the many different lectures students can avail themselves of, as well as Orientation. It's always joyful to see and be a part of when students are starting [their law school journey].
Can you offer a piece of advice for students at Maryland Carey Law?
My best piece of advice for students at Maryland Carey Law is to enjoy the breadth and depth of the experience. Apply yourself in your classes, connect with your professors and classmates, and really dig deep to learn the law and its nuances, how to be a critical thinker, and how to take full advantage of all of the opportunities you have while being a law student. It's a very special moment in time —just take that moment and really enjoy it.
Why is it important for alums to stay engaged with the law school?
It is vitally important. No matter how long we have practiced, we all know what it felt like to be a law school student and to need someone to mentor us—to help in navigating a clerkship or the first job or to fund a scholarship so we could achieve our greatest dream and potential. As alums, we have a privileged opportunity to actually sow seeds where we were able to reap. It's really an act of gratitude that we get to give back to a place that has given us so much.
What message would you like to share with the Maryland Carey Law community as you start your term?
Our law school is in so many ways a national and global leader in pursuing justice and helping to fortify the very foundations of our country and our society. I'm excited for the future because we have amazing students, tremendous alums, outstanding faculty, and a world-class dean who we all get to support in strategically impacting this country and this world in the pursuit of justice. I am excited about that as chair of the Board of Visitors but also as an alum and as a resident of Baltimore who is grateful that we have an institution like Maryland Carey Law in our community.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
More about Alicia L. Wilson
Born and raised in Baltimore, Wilson earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, before attending Maryland Carey Law and graduating in 2007.
Prior to her current role as vice president for civic engagement and opportunity at Hopkins, she was managing director and head of regional philanthropy for the North America Region at JPMorgan Chase, vice president of economic development for Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Medicine, and senior vice president of impact investments and senior legal counsel to the Port Covington Development Team. Wilson was also the first Black partner at the law firm Gordon Feinblatt in the firm’s 60-year history and an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Wilson serves on the boards of the CollegeBound Foundation, the Kennedy Krieger Institute, and the France-Merrick Foundation. She is co-founder of the Black Philanthropy Circle at the Baltimore Community Foundation and chair of the CollegeBound Foundation, where she made history as the first alum, first woman, youngest, and first Black board chair in the organization’s history.
Wilson was selected as one of the Power 50 Women of Influence for 2024 by the U.S. Black Chamber of Commerce, and one of Savoy Magazine’s Most Influential Black Executives in Corporate America.
As a Maryland Carey Law student, she was co-captain of the National Trial Team and participated in the Black Law Students Association, Students Supporting the Women’s Law Center, the Maryland Public Interest Law Project, the CollegeBound Foundation, and the Alumni Committee. She also served as coach for the Baltimore Freedom Academy mock trial team. At graduation, she received the Anne Barlow Gallagher Prize for Service to Children and Youth and the William P. Cunningham Award for Exceptional Achievement and Service to the law school and was inducted into the Order of the Barristers.