Professor Gross Honored
at Women's History Month Luncheon

Professor Karen Gross of New York Law School was honored at a Women's History Month luncheon on Wednesday, March 29, 2006 at SUNY Westchester Community College in Valhalla, New York.

The luncheon was a focal event of the Women's History Month programming at the college. Gross, a Westchester County resident who writes the "Money Sense" column for the Westchester County Business Journal and Fairfield County Business Journal , was honored for her life's work as a financial literacy expert who encourages others to become knowledgeable about "The Power of Money."

Phyllis Fein, associate professor of business and chair of the Women's History Month committee at SUNY Westchester Community College , said that Gross was selected because "she represents women creating community and sustaining dreams in countless ways and in myriad venues. Her inspiration, motivation, and contributions to issues of women, economics, and underprivileged communities will resonate deeply with our students."

Gross has been a professor at New York Law School for more than 20 years, teaching courses in bankruptcy, contracts, and financial advocacy, among others. She is also president of the Coalition for Consumer Bankruptcy Debtor Education, an award-winning pro bono organization she cofounded, and director of New York Law School's Economic Literacy Consortium. She speaks frequently in the United States and abroad on consumer finance, economic literacy, and bankruptcy-related issues. She has conducted empirical and historical research on consumer finance and bankruptcy, worked with individual debtors as a volunteer lawyer at New York 's Legal Aid Society, and written numerous scholarly articles. She is the author of the book Failure and Forgiveness: Rebalancing the Bankruptcy System (Yale University Press, 1997), which won the Association of American Publishers' 1997 Business Management Award. In 2004, Gross received a Senior Scholar Special Commendation of Honor from the American Association of University Women (AAUW).

She is a member of the Foundation Board of Open Door Family Medical Centers, headquartered in Ossining , New York.

Gross was honored along with Janine Rose, anchor and news director of the News 12 Westchester channel, representing "The Power of the Press," and two faculty members from Pace University: Barbara Thomas, a professor at the Lienhard School of Nursing, and Jean Coppola, a professor at the Ivan G. Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems, collectively representing "The Power of Aging and Technology."