Improving Welfare

On March 13, Professor Kaaryn Gustafson will be a guest speaker at "Improving Welfare: Current Trends and Policy Solutions." This educational forum in being held in conjunction with Women's Day at the Connecticut Legislative Office Building.The event is being hosted by the Connecticut Women's Education and Legal Fund, Legal Assistance Resource Center of Connecticut, Permanent Commission on the Status of Women and the YWCA Hartford Region.

Professor Gustafson has been recognized with the Herbert Jacob Book Prize for her latest book, Cheating Welfare. The prize is given by the Law and Society Association and is intended to recognize new, outstanding work in law and society scholarship.

Professor Gustafson has extensive knowledge of the nation's welfare system and a passion for getting beyond rhetoric to study how welfare functions in practice. Her dissertation, "The Morality and Rationality of Welfare: Welfare Recipients' Negotiation of the Welfare System," for which she earned a Ph.D. in Jurisprudence and Social Policy from the University of California at Berkeley, is a sophisticated demonstration, based on countless personal interviews with welfare recipients, of why the rules placed on the books by welfare lawmakers may often bear little resemblance to the system experienced by those we are trying to help.

Professor Gustafson is the author of Cheating Welfare: Public Assistance and the Criminalization of Poverty (NYU Press).




Additional Homepage Highlights


  • Dual Degree Programs
    The Law School offers five dual-degree programs that combine a superior legal education with graduate professional training in related fields.

  • Class of 2013: Justin and Kristen Bandura
    When Kristen Bandura '13 walks across the dais to receive her diploma from the School of Law on Sunday, she will literally be following in the footsteps of her older brother, Justin, also a member of the Class of 2013.

  • Lifetime Achievement Award
    Jeffrey A. Cooke '70 has been recognized by the Indiana Trial Lawyers Association with its Lifetime Achievement Award.

  • Teaching Scholar Award
    Professor Jennifer Mailly has been awarded the 2013-2014 Teaching Scholar Award by the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at UConn.

  • Summer Term 2013
    It's never too early to begin thinking about Summer Term! The Law School offers classes in both June and July sessions. Registration is now open.

  • Profile: Andraya Pulaski '13
    Andraya Pulaski '13 clearly remembers the day she decided she wanted to be a lawyer. She was 10 and spent a day shadowing a friend’s father at his firm. Now she is on the verge of fulfilling that dream.

more homepage highlights...