Alumnus/Alumna of the Month

Mary Haviland ('94)

Read an Interview with Mary Haviland.

For twenty five years, Mary Haviland has been an advocate for battered women in the court system and the public policy arena. After starting her career as a paralegal advocate with Brooklyn Legal Services, acting on behalf of battered women in divorce and Family Court proceedings, Haviland joined the Park Slope Safe Homes Project in 1980. As director of Safe Homes, a community-based organization for battered women and their children, she managed all operations, including counseling, shelter, support groups, and a crisis hotline. From 1985-1987, while pursuing a Master’s Degree from Columbia University in political science and public policy, Haviland continued to work with Safe Homes as an advocacy coordinator, focusing on domestic violence public policy issues.

Haviland founded the Coalition for Criminal Justice Reform for Battered Women in 1987, the first group in New York City to advocate for and implement criminal justice reforms specifically designed for domestic violence survivors. In 1990, Haviland left the Coalition to pursue a law degree; she joined the Family Violence Project in 1994 after graduating from New York University School of Law. In 2002, a spin-off of the Urban Justice Center formed an independent not-for-profit organization called CONNECT, where Haviland currently serves as Co-executive Director. At CONNECT she draws on her extensive expertise to design and implement education and direct-service programs aimed at improving the response of the criminal justice system to domestic violence.

Haviland is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the prestigious Root, Tilden, Snow Fellowship from New York University and the Charles Revson Fellowship on the Future of New York from Columbia University. She received the Susan B. Anthony Award from the National Organization for Women in 1989. Haviland is co-chair of the Criminal Justice Committee of the NYC Interagency Task Force Against Domestic Violence and the author of numerous publications about domestic violence and criminal justice, including The Family Protection and Domestic Violence Intervention Act of 1995: Examining the Effects of Mandatory Arrest in New York City, May 2001.