Alice Conway

By Ginger O’Donnell 

Alice Conway, AB ’76, MA ’79, PhD ’83, JD ’83, pursued her joint passion for literature and law at WashU. Her study of comparative literature spanned five languages, including works in French, German, Spanish, Latin, and English — all translated into Braille, as Conway is blind. Today, as a serious singer who formerly traveled to New York for private voice lessons at The Juilliard School, Conway maintains her multilingual skill by singing at Our Lady of the Pillar Catholic Church and with the Morning Etude St. Louis, an area music club. She also shares her talents through leadership positions on several nonprofit boards, including Opera in the Ozarks, all while serving as the assistant general counsel for commercial and employment law at Bayer.

Conway recalls her WashU experience as one of wholesale accessibility, accommodating not only her blindness but also her unique learning style and desire to blend disciplines creatively as a graduate student. She was well prepared for WashU’s rigorous standards by her mother, whose persistence and advocacy ensured her daughter could gain a first-rate education alongside her sighted peers from elementary school onward. In 2013, Conway established The Carmelita Williamson Conway Scholarship to honor her mother’s influence and to foster the promise of greater access for future generations of WashU students.

“WashU made it possible for me to get the education and the life I have, based on the foundation my mom laid — making sure I got the same education as the sighted kids. The rest of my life has been transformed by that.”

Alice Conway, Assistant General Counsel at Bayer

You have committed your career to practicing law despite many other interests. What drew you to the legal profession? 

I love nothing more than a good debate about an issue. My professors at WashU taught me the power of persuasion. It goes back to what I love about comparative literature and opera: how to tell a good, true story. They taught me to lead by understanding people’s needs, by listening and asking questions. By asking questions, you can guide people to what you hope they will understand. If you don’t have any other kind of power, you still have the power to persuade if you can tell a story about what you’re seeing and what should be done about it.

Looking back, what stands out about your WashU experience?

Every day I owe an immense debt of gratitude to WashU. The whole experience was one of accessibility. One important thing my professors did was to provide me with the course syllabi months in advance so they could be translated into Braille the old-fashioned way, before computers performed that task. They also encouraged me to accept my learning style and realize that I was going where the rest of the students were, just a little differently. I would assimilate some knowledge quickly, progressing amazingly well, and then I’d hit a plateau. I wouldn’t seem to be learning anything for weeks. And then it would jump again. They made me feel empowered to keep going.

WashU also gave me opportunities to be creative. I created and taught two courses in graduate school. One of them was “Operas Born of Literature.” We took literary works and compared them to the operas they spawned. We figured out what made the story work in each genre. The other course was about how writers make happy heroines believable and interesting. These two classes helped me be more creative and flexible. And that stands you in good stead as a leader.

Now, you’re paying the gift of education forward with the scholarship you established in honor of your mother and through dedicated Annual Fund contributions as a member of the William Greenleaf Eliot Society. Why is it so important to you to support greater access to a WashU education?

I would not have been able to pursue higher education at WashU without my scholarships. I received the Mylonas Scholarship for undergraduate school and university fellowships all the way through graduate and law school.

WashU made it possible for me to get the education and the life I have, based on the foundation mom laid. My life would have taken a totally different course, and WashU wouldn’t have accepted me, if mom hadn’t made sure I got the same education the sighted kids were getting.

The rest of my life has been transformed by that. Today, I love the people I work with at Bayer, and I have several leadership roles at various nonprofit organizations. I go through my days trying to trust God and get the job done.

With you, we unlock world-class learning and greater access.