COLUMBIA, KY – A lot of people don’t land their dream job until they have labored for decades in their profession.
That’s one reason why Casey Hardy McGowan is excited to be back at Lindsey Wilson College.
McGowan was recently named a Lindsey Wilson criminal justice professor and director of the college’s Title IX compliance, where she serves as the college’s Title IX coordinator. She also will serve as public defender for the Columbia region in nearby Taylor County.
“I’m really excited to be back here,” said McGowan, who grew up in Jamestown, Kentucky, and graduated from Lindsey Wilson in 2014 with a degree in English and criminal justice and a women’s studies minor. “Lindsey Wilson is so special to me . . . I feel like I was able to achieve what I did after I left here because of what I got while I was here. Throughout the years, I have realized how special the Lindsey Wilson student experience is.”
After Lindsey Wilson, McGowan earned a law degree from Emory University School of Law, then remained in Georgia to clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta before going to work for Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael P. Boggs. She then moved to south Florida, where she worked for a law firm and as in-house counsel for the retailer giant Amazon.
“I thought that I had reached the pinnacle of my career when I got the offer to work for Amazon, but I was definitely wrong, because this is exactly what I have dreamed of doing with my law degree,” said McGowan, a 2010 Russell County High School graduate. “If you had asked me in law school, ‘What’s your dream job to do with your law degree?’ These three jobs are exactly what I would have told you. And it feels so, so good to do it here at this college and for this community that is so dear to me.”
McGowan serves as Lindsey Wilson’s director of Title IX compliance, which makes sure the college remains in compliance with the 1972 federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school that receives funding from the federal government. She also serves as the college’s Title IX coordinator, overseeing intake of the college’s Title IX cases.
As a Lindsey Wilson criminal justice professor, McGowan will have a great deal of professional experiences to draw on for her students – her legal work in Georgia and Florida, as well as her new experiences in Taylor County courts. She’ll also have an opportunity to practice what she calls “heartwork.”
“I call it ‘heartwork’ because I really believe in this place,” she said. “And when you get to work for something you really believe in, you’re lucky.”
