From the Front to the Heart of the Classroom

(This posting is one in a series devoted to Boyd School of Law 2009 first-year law students who have unusual or especially interesting backgrounds. Boyd has been highly successfully not only in attracting students with outstanding academic credentials, but also in appealing to students with a noteworthy diversity of experiences.)

Cheryl A. Grames Hoffman ‘12

After five-years as a stay-at-home mom, Cheryl A. Grames Hoffman, a former part-time history instructor at UNLV, decided to relocate from the front to the heart of the classroom and enter the Boyd School of Law.

Cheryl said her “return to UNLV, this time as a law student, is a personal triumph for her as she seeks to build a future full of promise for herself and her children.”

Although not certain at present which area of law she would like to practice, she is certain that she wants “to build a career that will always include the elements of scholarship and public service.”

She also is certain that the foundation of her future “rests on the importance of hard work, adaptability, and a commitment always to strive to make the world a better place,” principles she feels mirror the core values of the Boyd School of Law.

Cheryl also feels strongly that her educational background in history (B.A. from Rutgers University, Camden, and M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia) enabled her to bring a classic liberal-arts training to a variety of work environments as well as to the study of law.

She is extremely proud of the work she did as a workforce development specialist for the U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration in Boston. Although her position entailed managing federal employment and training grants, she maximized her involvement in all of the policy aspects of implementing new employment and training legislation, including the Welfare-to-Work initiative and the Workforce Investment Act.