Chicago-Kent’s Immigration Law Society and Two Students Honored at Illinois Tech’s 2019 Stryker Awards Banquet

Chicago-Kent College of Law’s Immigration Law Society received the 2019 Outstanding Student Organization Award at Illinois Institute of Technology’s 44th annual Clinton E. Stryker Awards Banquet in October. In addition, two students—Bridget Murphy ’20 and John “Jack” Shadid ’21—were honored with Illinois Tech’s Clinton E. Stryker Distinguished Service Awards, which recognize outstanding contributions to campus life.

“Jack, Bridget, and the Immigration Law Society are so deserving of these awards,” says Dean Anita K. Krug. “I applaud our students’ willingness to help others—whether they’re assisting women and children fleeing violence in their home countries or making the law school experience better for their classmates.”

Since 2018, students in Chicago-Kent’s Immigration Law Society have made annual trips to the U.S. border with Mexico to prepare women and children seeking asylum for their credible-fear interviews with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service. At the South Texas Family Residential Detention Center in Dilley, Texas, the student teams—supervised by Samantha Lloyd ’13, an associate at Ogletree Deakins—worked grueling 12-hour days to provide much-needed assistance to women and children in dire circumstances. 

The Immigration Law Society is currently planning a third trip to the United States–Mexico border for January 2020. 

Stryker Distinguished Service Award recipients Murphy and Shadid have both gone above and beyond in their work to support the law school community. 

As vice president of the Student Bar Association, Murphy plans social activities for other students and has made it her personal goal to increase the mental health programming available to her classmates. She is a co-chair of the Student-Alumni Board and works to make the board successful in the law school community. She has dedicated time to the university and her peers as a teaching assistant for Civil Procedure and Business Organizations. Additionally, she is currently a federal judicial extern in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

To help first-year students transition to law school life, Shadid worked with the law school’s Academic Support Office to organize a “Family and Friends Day.” He organizes monthly social gatherings in the law school’s lobby to help students build relationships with their classmates. Shadid is the treasurer of the Student Bar Association and the former secretary of the Cannabis Law Society. Using his background as a former legislative staffer for the Illinois General Assembly, Shadid brought Illinois State Representative Kelly Cassidy, the sponsor of Illinois’ recreational cannabis legalization bill, to speak at the law school last March.

The Stryker Awards are named in honor of Clinton E. Stryker, who earned a degree in electrical engineering in 1917 from the Armour Institute, the forerunner of Illinois Tech. Stryker served as an associate professor in the electrical engineering department at Armour and later became president and director of Maysteel Products and Industrial Equipment and president of Maypro, Inc. Each year, between 15 and 25 full-time graduate and undergraduate students receive Stryker Awards. 

• Read more about the Immigration Law Society’s 2019 trip to Dilley, Texas.
• The Immigration Law Society is collecting donations for its January 2020 trip to the U.S.-Mexico border. Make a donation.