Co-Principal Investigators

Professor Charles E. Daye, Brandis Professor of Law, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Professor Daye joined the University of North Carolina School of Law faculty in 1972. and has studied and analyzed Constitutional law for over three decades. He graduated from North Carolina Central University (B.A. magna cum laude, 1966) and from Columbia University School of Law (J.D. cum laude, 1969). He was President of the Law School Admission Council in 1991 when LSAC initiated the Bar Passage Study. His teaching and scholarship interests include torts, housing and community development, administrative process and advocacy, and social justice issues, such as assuring access to the legal profession by members of under-represented minority groups. He served as dean of the North Carolina Central University School of Law (1981-85) and is co-author of a course book, Housing and Community Development and co-author of a treatise, North Carolina Law of Torts. Professor Daye participated in the preparation of and co-signed the Amicus Brief (pdf) that the law school submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the University of Michigan School of Law in the Grutter case.

Professor Daye's curriculum vitae

Dr. Abigail T. Panter, Bowman and Gordon Gray Professor of Psychology, L. L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Dr. Panter is a quantitative psychologist who develops research designs and data-analytic strategies for applied health and social issues such as HIV/AIDS and substance abuse. She has degrees from Wellesley College (B.A.,1985) and New York University (M.A.,1987; Ph.D., 1989). Her publications are in the areas of measurement and test theory, multivariate data modeling, program evaluation design, and individual differences (especially personality). She also consults with The Measurement Group in Culver City, California. Dr. Panter has received numerous awards for her quantitative teaching including UNC's 2007 Carlyle Sitterson Freshman Teaching Award, the 2003 American Psychological Association’s Jacob Cohen Award for Distinguished Teaching and Mentoring (Division 5: Measurement, Statistics, and Evaluation), and UNC’s Tanner Award for excellence in teaching at the undergraduate level. She is also a three-time winner of her department’s professor-of-the-year teaching award, has received UNC’s Access Award for her work teaching students with learning disabilities, and is on the executive committee of UNC’s Academy of Distinguished Teaching Scholars. Dr. Panter regularly consults with federal agencies on grant review, serves on national committees and advisory boards in social/personality psychology and quantitative methods, and is a Fellow of APA. She co-edited The Sage Handbook of Methods in Social Psychology (2004) and three volumes on program evaluation and measuring outcomes for HIV/AIDS multisite projects, and she coauthored an online knowledge base for HIV/AIDS care.

Dr. Panter's website

Dr. Walter R. Allen, Professor of Education and the holder of the Allan Murray Cartter Chair in Higher Education at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies in the University of California, Los Angeles.

Dr. Allen is also Professor of Sociology at UCLA and Co-Director of CHOICES, a longitudinal study of college access and attendance among African Americans and Latinos in California.  Dr. Allen’s research and teaching focus on comparative race, ethnicity and inequality; diversity in higher education; social inequality; and family studies.  His degrees in the field of Sociology are from Beloit College (B.A., 1971) and the University of Chicago (M.A., 1973; Ph.D., 1975).  Dr. Allen has held teaching appointments at the University of Michigan (1979-89) and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (1974-79) as well as Howard University, Duke University, University of Zimbabwe and Wayne State University.  He has also worked as a consultant to courts, communities, foundations, business and government. 

Dr. Allen’s publications include The Color Line and the Quality of Life in America (1987); Enacting Diverse Learning Environments: Improving the Climate for Racial/Ethnic Diversity in Higher Education Institutions (1999); College in Black and White (1991); Black American Families, 1965-84 (1986); Beginnings:  The Social and Affective Development of Black Children (1985); Stony the Road: The Black Struggle for Higher Education in California (2002); and African American Education: Race, Community, Inequality and Achievement (2002).  He was also guest co-editor of “Comparative Perspectives on Black Family Life,” Journal of Comparative Family Studies, and “Affirmative Action in Higher Education,” Journal of Negro Education.  His numerous articles appear in the Harvard Educational Review, Journal of Marriage and Family, Phylon, Sociological Quarterly, National Black Law Journal, Signs, Social Science and Medicine, Journal of General Internal Medicine, and Research in Higher Education. 
Dr. Allen's website

Dr. Allen's curriculum vitae

Dr. Linda F. Wightman, Professor, Educational Research Methodology (retired), University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Dr. Wightman is an expert in educational research methodology with a research emphasis on the role of race in the law school setting. She joined the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1997, after eight years as Vice-President of Operations, Testing, and Research at the Law School Admission Council. Dr. Wightman was the Principal Investigator for the LSAC National Longitudinal Bar Passage Study. This five million dollar study spanned a period of eight years and provided a wealth of information about law school students, legal education, and minority access to the legal profession. Dr. Wightman also prepared numerous articles and technical reports on the study, a public use database, and a user's manual to make the data available to interested researchers. Prior to her work at the LSAC and since receiving her Ed.D. from Rutgers in 1982, Dr. Wightman held several major measurement and statistician roles directing the School and Higher Education Programs (SHEP) at the Educational Testing Service.

Dr. Wightman's curriculum vitae

Acknowledgement of Staff

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