Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

Can We Teach?

posted by Robert Ahdieh

Reading Alfred’s posts on choosing a law school, I got to thinking about the quality of teaching at any given school, as a factor in that choice, and of an article I read in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, on Building a Better Teacher.

The piece describes, in essence, the effort to improve the quality of primary and secondary education in the United States, by more carefully/fully training teachers in how to teach.  By contrast, it counsels, merely incentivizing teachers (whether with the carrot of merit pay, or the stick of dismissal/school closure) fails to get at the root of the problem.  Teachers, thus, need to be taught how to teach.

The teacher trainer profiled, for example, suggests that the generally derided and dismissed issue of “classroom management” is actually foundational to whatever learning does (or does not) occur in the class.  As the article puts it, “students can’t learn unless the teacher succeeds in capturing their attention and getting them to follow instructions.”  (By way of empirics, I might note, the article cites data to certain that the students of the best teachers get 18 months of material, for each year in class, while those of the worse teachers get only 6 months!)

What about those of us in law school teaching, though?  Can we teach?  Is there any reason to believe that the skills that get us our teaching appointments are well correlated with teaching skills?

I’m doubtful there is, though I might perhaps be convinced otherwise.  Even if there is some such correlation, however, wouldn’t it still be useful to think about relevant training in classroom instruction, for law students thinking about going into teaching – or perhaps at least for those who actually end up there?  Isn’t that especially appropriate if, as the research reported in the article suggests, evidence of natural teaching “ability” aren’t highly correlated with student success?

One need not abandon a commitment to scholarship as the most critical metric in appointments, in promotion, and even in evaluating the overall “success” of a law professor, thus, to recognize that there are relevant skills to teaching – and perhaps to law teaching in particular – that we ought to know.

If so, how might we go about accomplishing as much?  By having a teaching “track” in law school, which would include some training in teaching?  Perhaps with some sort of intensive summer program, in which newly hired teachers would enroll for a time before embarking on their teaching careers?

No single solution would be perfect, of course.  I’m reminded, though, of my complaints to a colleague, in my first year of teaching, that I wasn’t sure I was doing a particularly good job at teaching.  “I’m sure they love you!” he responded.  Perhaps they do, I remember thinking, but that need not mean I was doing a good job.

  March 11, 2010 at 10:55 am   Posted in: Education, Law School (Teaching), Teaching, Uncategorized   Print This Post   2 Comments

What a “Ghetto” Party at UCSD Can Teach Us About the Importance of Racial Diversity on Campus

posted by Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Black History Month just ended.  In honor of Black History (or perhaps its end), certain students at the University of California, San Diego decided to leave us with one last lesson about the importance of diversity.

On February 15, 2010, individual members of a fraternity at UCSD held an off-campus party in honor of Black History Month called the “Compton Cookout” (The President of Pi Alpha Kappa criticized the party and asserted that the party was not sponsored or condoned by the fraternity.).  The invitation included references to “dat Purple drank,” which the party creators described as consisting of “sugar, water, and the color purple, chicken, coolade, and of course Watermelon.”   The students sent the invitation via Facebook with dress and behavior requirements for attendees.

Men were asked to be “stuntin’ in ya white T (XXXL smallest size acceptable), anything FUBU. . . .”

Women were asked to come as “ghetto chicks” with “short, nappy hair” (Did we not learn anything from Don Imus?).   The dress and behavior requirements for women were extensive and included the language below:

“For girls: For those of you who are unfamiliar with ghetto chicks-Ghetto chicks usually have gold teeth, start fights and drama, and wear cheap clothes – they consider Baby Phat to be high class and expensive couture. They also have short, nappy hair, and usually wear cheap weave, usually in bad colors, such as purple or bright red. They look and act similar to Shenaynay, and speak very loudly, while rolling their neck, and waving their finger in your face. Ghetto chicks have a very limited vocabulary, and attempt to make up for it, by forming new words, such as “constipulated”, or simply cursing persistently, or using other types of vulgarities, and making noises, such as “hmmg!”, or smacking their lips, and making other angry noises, grunts, and faces. The objective is for all you lovely ladies to look, act, and essentially take on these “respectable” qualities throughout the day.”

Read the rest of this post »

  March 2, 2010 at 4:02 pm  Tags: Compton Cookout, diversity, Grutter, Parents Involved, Proposition 209, UCSD fraternity party  Posted in: Civil Rights, Current Events, Education, Race, Uncategorized   Print This Post   3 Comments

For Faculty Buyouts

posted by Lawrence Cunningham

Universities nationwide are in a vise, devastating for most, but an opportunity for a few. The grip is how financial woes dictate reduced spending while rankings intensity demands enhanced research prowess.

For most universities, the cross-pressures mean spending and research curtailed. But a few universities can make the dilemma others face into an opportunity. They can shed highly-paid professors who do not conduct research and hire newer professors devoted to that. That saves money and promotes valuable research.

This strategy will not help already-established national research universities like Harvard or many University of California schools. They must rely on furloughs and other cuts to deal with fiscal adversity and cling to hope that existing research resources will hold their own. Nor would it pay off for the vast majority of universities lower in the academic hierarchy. They must not only resort to furloughs and such but are not positioned to leverage research investment.

But it may be an ideal strategy for well-established and well-regarded universities towards but not at the top of the academic hierarchy. My employer, George Washington University, may be the perfect example and probable beneficiary of this strategy. GW is a centuries-old, large and famous university. It is well-respected for excellent pedagogy, student life and prospects and a generally solid research orientation. But it is not routinely ranked as among the finest national research universities. Read the rest of this post »

  February 17, 2010 at 9:23 pm   Posted in: Education   Print This Post   3 Comments

U.C. WAKE UP CALL: How Scale and Action Can Save the U.C. and Maybe the Rest of Higher Education in California

posted by Deven Desai

I love California, and I love the University of California. I am saddened by the recent financial problems the state and the entire education system faces. But I am more upset by what seems to be a failure of the education system: people who think 60s style protests are useful and wise responses to problems they helped create.

Sit-ins, threats, throwing food at Regents, and chants of the “What do we want? X! When do we want it? Now!” ilk remind me of a five year old throwing a tantrum; not intelligent people trying to change the system and take responsibility for their role in the problem. When I was at Berkeley, a professor noted that protesting the first Iraq war (especially in the Bay Area) was not as effective as the same thousands of people writing to Congress members and being clear where their donations and votes would go in the future. The same applies to the education funding problem.

Instead of putting all that great activist energy to campaigning for funding education, Californians have coasted on a system that cannot work without incredible growth. Californians cling to a broken property tax system, fail to push for better education funding, and back spending a billion dollars on prisons. Shame on us.

U.C. Berkeley’s alumni association sent me an email claiming close to 500,000 living alumni. That is but one campus in a system of 10 campuses. Now, add in the numbers of Californians who attend or graduated from the CalState and Community College system. Given the graduates, the current employees, and students at all the higher education campuses, there ought to be a focused, powerful political group that could move the state towards fixing its education funding problems. Rather than doing so, many of these folks waited until the state had no money and in a sense no choice about what to do to address the shortfall. The Regents and the students are finally joining together to voice their views in Sacramento. This type of action should have happened in the first place.

And, there is more to do. We need to start giving money to our respective campuses. I have more to say on this point. But in case you want to give now, here is the link to give to Cal. Here is a jump page with links to give to other U.C. campuses. Here is the link for giving to the CalState system. Here is the link to give to California’s Community College system.

Read the rest of this post »

  February 3, 2010 at 3:34 pm   Posted in: Education   Print This Post   One Comment

New Journal: Accounting, Economics, and Law

posted by Lawrence Cunningham

Scholars like me interested in law as it interacts with accounting and economics will be excited to learn of a new joural offering to link these three fields and many others. Called the Journal of Accounting, Economics and Law, this is a welcome new forum to celebrate study of the relation, too often under-appreciated, among these subjects. The journal’s founding editors are three scholars I’ve come to know and admire, Michigan law prof Reuven Avi-Yonah, Yale accounting prof Shyam Sunder and University of Paris business economics prof Yuri Biondi.  

I’m flattered to have  been asked to serve on the Advisory Board, which boasts many luminous scholars from around the world, including, from the US, Sudipta Basu (Temple, accounting); Jonathan Glover (Carnegie Mellon, accounting); David Kennedy (Harvard, law); my colleague Larry Mitchell (GW, law); Roberta Romano (Yale, law); Martin Shubik (Yale, economics); and Lynn Stout (UCLA, law).

Following is a description of the journal.   Manuscript submissions are encouraged!

“The Journal of Accounting, Economics, and Law aims to encourage a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between individuals, organizations, and institutions in economy and society.

Financial, economic and legal techniques and languages play an influential and neglected role in this relationship. Concerns of finance, control, accountability, responsibility, valuation, regulation, and governance will be raised in their connection with accounting, economics, law, sociology, anthropology, history, finance, political science, and the management and policy sciences.

The journal encourages works that seek to recombine disciplinary domains in response to practically relevant issues, while encouraging theoretical advances and insights, and comparative historical perspectives.”

  January 18, 2010 at 5:50 pm   Posted in: Accounting, Economic Analysis of Law, Education, Law School (Scholarship)   Print This Post   One Comment

The Academic Destiny of Educated, Irreligious, Jewish, Tolerant Non-Capitalists

posted by Dave Hoffman

A sure-to-be-blogged article from the NYT hypes the purported findings from the paper “Why Are Professors Liberal.”  According to the Times, the paper (by Fosse/Gross), the paper uses

“data from the General Social Survey of opinions and social behaviors and compare professors with the rest of Americans . . . to [link] … to the broader question of why some occupations — just like ethnic groups or religions — have a clear political hue. Using an econometric technique, they were then able to test which of the theories frequently bandied about were supported by evidence and which were not . . . The academic profession ‘has acquired such a strong reputation for liberalism and secularism that over the last 35 years few politically or religiously conservative students, but many liberal and secular ones, have formed the aspiration to become professors’.”

The theory is plausible — indeed, it is often advanced by those who deny that intentional discrimination has caused the political inbalance in the faculty lounge.  But as the paper admits, and the Times neglects to mention, the data collected – “provide[s] no direct evidence that [the] theory of professorial liberalism is correct.” (p. 50).  Rather, it draws on other studies, which used surveys to argue that conservatives students did not want to emulate their professors (while liberals did).  That, combined with the clustered cultural characteristics strongly associated with being an academic, lends some support to the selection hypothesis.  But it’s not a true test of the hypothesis.  Indeed, I don’t know how you could test such a selection hypothesis cleanly with observational data.

Moreover, I think the paper understates the role that intentional selection plays: the more time I’ve spent in as an academic, the less sure I am that high education’s anti-conservative tilt  is benign or situational.  (That said, I continue to think that conservative scholarship by pre-hiring candidates places over its weight.)

  January 18, 2010 at 11:53 am   Posted in: Education, Empirical Analysis of Law, Employment Law, Law School (Hiring & Laterals)   Print This Post   One Comment

Education, Technology, and Empirical Data

posted by Deven Desai

I just returned from the Institute for Advanced Study’s Symposium on Technology and Education. Anyone interested in how education operates should contact the folks in today’s symposium or in the year-long seminar The Dewey Seminar: Education, Schools and the State. It is a great group of people thinking about justice, finance, the structure of schools, education and labor matters, whether constitutions address education, and much more. Indeed, it struck me that many of the participants’ work could provide interesting opportunities for collaboration.

Today’s speakers offered some fantastic ideas about the way education works in K-12. One thing that occurred to me was how, in yet another field, data is increasingly important. In many areas, vast amounts of data are being used to understand how a student is performing or where a different type of learning style may be required or whether a teacher is effective, and so on. This point may be readily familiar to those interested in empirical legal studies. Yet, two key issues arise. How does one sort the data? And, how does one interpret the data.

The answer seems to lie in the ability to embrace the Google mindset. Take in data. Study it. Study it. Study it. And see where it takes you. As Hal Varian has described (pdf), “The real secret to Google’s success is that they are constantly experimenting with the algorithm, adjusting, tuning and tweaking virtually continuously.” He compares this approach to “the Japanese approach to quality control is kaizen which is commonly translated as ‘continuous improvement.’” As general matter Varian has offered:

During the 1960s and 70s the scientific study of financial markets flourished due to the availability of massive amounts of data and the application of quantitative methods. I think that marketing is at the same position finance was in the early 1960s. Large amounts of computer readable data on marketing performance are just now becoming available via search engines, supermarket scanners, and other sorts of information technology. Such data provides the raw material for scientific studies of consumer behavior and I expect that there will much progress in this area in the coming decade.

After today’s seminar I am wondering whether “large amounts of computer readable data on marketing performance” could also be written “large amounts of computer readable data on education performance.” It seems like that day is coming, if not already here. We may be entering an era where education is heavily data driven and educators must be able to use new tools to understand and use the data. The challenges regarding privacy, notions of tracking, and fairness will be large. Then again the promise of improved educational outcomes and a system that can reach more students in ways far beyond training them to jump through test-taking hoops suggests that whatever the obstacles, it is worth pursuing the possibilities.

  January 15, 2010 at 4:27 pm   Posted in: Education, Google & Search Engines, Teaching   Print This Post   3 Comments

Maybe It’s Not Broken: Law Schools, Critical Thinking, and Carnegie

posted by Deven Desai

Law school doesn’t work. The model is broken. We need to train students to be ready to practice as full lawyers right out of law school. These are, of course, slightly hyperbolic reductions of some of the current claims and possible crises in legal education. Nonetheless, there has been discussion of whether the downturn means that law schools need to rethink what they are doing. I have written before that I think law school offers a special skill better than other schools: critical thinking. None of which to say that legal education could not improve. But insofar as that drive to improve is a claim for more practical training, there is another reason to pause. Business schools and at least one business leader seem to say that what they want is someone with, wait for it, great critical thinking skills. What? Yes. Excellent critical thinking skills are requested. And it gets better. Business schools are under criticism for, wait for it, being too practical. “Ever since 1959, when two influential studies by the Ford and Carnegie Foundations chastised business schools as being too vocational, most M.B.A. programs have taken anything but a broad approach to their subject matter.”

That’s correct. According to Carnegie, business schools were too practical. Law schools are too abstract. Which bed will Goldilocks pick? Is there a perfect blend? Perhaps, but one must wonder whether there is a pattern of over-reaction to whatever system is dominant in a given field. I like the idea of law professors using more real world examples in class and that law school should prepare students to write well. But I firmly believe that writing well is a function of reading and engaging with theory as well as other material. In other words, law schools must continue to develop and hone critical thinking skills.

Take a look at this quote from Nancy McKinstry, the C.E.O. and chairwoman of the executive board of Wolters Kluwer about qualities she looks for when hiring: “I look for people who are good problem solvers. Again, I think that’s from my own experience — if you know how to solve problems, you have a shot of performing at a higher level. You obviously need some subject-matter expertise, but I’d rather have someone who’s really strong on problem-solving, and maybe a little less on the subject-matter expertise, because we can teach them that.”

It sounds like something a law school might say. We’ll train you how to think. The details can be sorted as they arise.

If the New York Times is correct that “even before the financial upheaval last year, business executives operating in a fast-changing, global market were beginning to realize the value of managers who could think more nimbly across multiple frameworks, cultures and disciplines. The financial crisis underscored those concerns — at business schools and in the business world itself,” maybe law schools should remember that they are damn good at developing those skills.

In fact, as the Times noted, “while few [business schools] talk explicitly about taking a liberal arts approach to business, many of the changes are moving business schools into territory more traditionally associated with the liberal arts: multidisciplinary approaches, an understanding of global and historical context and perspectives, a greater focus on leadership and social responsibility and, yes, learning how to think critically.” Isn’t that what we do at law school?

  January 14, 2010 at 2:33 pm   Posted in: Education, Law School   Print This Post   7 Comments

Double Serendipity: Danielle Allen and the Institute for Advanced Study’s Sympoium on Technology and Education

posted by Deven Desai

One thing that Dan Burk, Mike Madison, Dan Solove, and a few others told me as I started my academic career was that it was important to read, read, read; attend conferences; and engage with other professors about their work. With that base one slowly but surely develops better material and grows a network of colleagues who will be able to let you know where you work is strong and where it needs improvement. I took that idea to mean go ahead and contact folks when you have something to say.

Just before I heard that I was going to be at Princeton, I contacted an old friend, Danielle Allen because some of her work on democracy and rhetoric caught my attention. Danielle and I had attended K-8 grades together but lost touch after that. It turns out that she just had seen my name in the acknowledgment section of one of Dan Solove’s books and wondered whether that was the same person she knew. It was. Danielle is at the Institute for Advanced Studies here in Princeton. We caught up over lunch, had a great time, and I learned about her work at IAS. One of her projects is the The Dewey Seminar: Education, Schools and the State, which she co-organized with Rob Reich. Here is the scope of the project:

Every society and political regime develops educational institutions and practices that substantially shape its evolution, revolutions, and stabilization over time. The Dewey Seminar will explore the interrelationships among education, justice, schools, and the state. Because of the centrality of education to the continuity of sociopolitical orders, its analysis embraces virtually all the social sciences. A significant number of the School’s Members this year will pursue work related directly to this theme-from exploring how diverse educational practices are linked to specific political orders to studying contemporary pressures on education and its capacity to support democratic political systems.

In 1916 the philosopher John Dewey published Democracy and Education: an introduction to the philosophy of education. He sought an account of education that could enable human flourishing both individually and collectively for democratic citizens. Our seminar takes its inspiration from his aspirations.

Anyone interested in these topics should go to the Seminar’s home page and check the participant list.

The seminar has various components one of which is a symposium series with practitioners. At lunch, Danielle mentioned that the January symposium is on Technology and Education. The people involved and their projects to use technology to generate real change in education are ambitious and inspiring. I will be attending and thinking about how these ideas connect to IP as a barrier to innovation, the Google Book deal, and where a combination of law and technology might be able to break through current problems in technology and education. In short, I have caught up with an old friend, and I get to hear leaders in their fields talk about the promises and challenges of technology and education. It is a great start to the new year, and I am grateful to those who were part of my enjoying a little double serendipity.

  January 14, 2010 at 8:52 am   Posted in: Conferences, Education, Technology   Print This Post   No Comments

Are They Law Students? Or Legal Education Customers?

posted by Adam Benforado

In case you missed it, there is an interesting debate in the New York Times today over whether business schools ought to treat enrollees as “customers” or “students.” The back and forth was prompted by a recent article in the Chicago Tribune and, in the exchange, Stephen Joel Trachtenberg (president emeritus, George Washington), Edward A. Snyder (dean, University of Chicago Booth School of Business), David Bejou (dean, Elizabeth City State University School of Business), Richard Vedder (professor of economics, Ohio State University), and Mark C. Taylor (professor of religion, Columbia University) make some provocative points.

Although it is not always made so explicit, it seems to me that many law schools are struggling with the same concerns. How much control should law students have over the exact trajectories of their educations? Should there be more mandatory courses or more electives? How much time should professors spend on their teaching versus their scholarship? Should students be able to dictate (or at least have input on) how professors teach, what they teach, and when they teach? Should students be permitted to attend faculty meetings?

While the comparison seems natural, it is also worth thinking about how the M.B.A. context might potentially be different from the J.D. context.

Perhaps the New York Times should sponsor another debate?

  January 4, 2010 at 1:04 pm   Posted in: Education   Print This Post   17 Comments

Ensuring that We Leave Children Behind

posted by Danielle Citron

Talk about children, their educations, and security abound.  Politicians declare their devotion to children’s issues.   Singers and actors assure us that “children are our future.”  Books enlist villages to raise them.  But when the rubber hits the road we routinely fail children in so many ways, including privacy.  Today, Joel Reidenberg’s Center on Law and Information Policy released a report attesting to our utter inability to protect the privacy of children’s educational records.  Reviewing publicly available information from all 50 states, the CLIP study found that states collect information far in excess of what law requires, including data about pregnancy, mental illness, family wealth, jail sentences,  and Social Security numbers.  Despite the sensitive nature of the information collected, state databases have weak privacy protections.  The study found that oftentimes the flow of information from local schools to state departments of education failed to comply with the privacy requirements of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

This appalling state of affairs cannot stand.  Such databases are ripe for identity thieves and hackers who will enjoy plundering the Social Security numbers.  They can lead to discrimination based on inappropriately shared health information.  The CLIP study  has offered a number of wise recommendations, including the minimization of data collection, adoption of clear retention policies, and maintenance of audit logs.  It also suggests the anonymization of data through the use of dual database architectures, which I wonder if Paul Ohm’s important work on the myth of anonymity would question.  Otherwise, this study must be read and heeded.

  October 28, 2009 at 1:28 pm   Posted in: Current Events, Education, Privacy   Print This Post   No Comments

A Civil Procedure Curriculum Challenge

posted by Spencer Waller

I read with great interest Jon Siegel’s recent post on curricular reform and the thirty or so comments it generated. I don’t really disagree with his main point that law school is mostly about “acquiring the ability to acquire skills and knowledge.” But at the same time, I don’t spend that much time on personal jurisdiction and Erie in my civil procedure class and wanted to use this post to explain why.

I started teaching civil procedure during my time at Brooklyn Law School where civil procedure was a two semester five credit course. When I got to Loyola, civ pro was a two semester six credit course. Two years ago we moved to a one semester four credit course as part of a general reform of the first year curriculum. So I have now taught the course in just about every possible permutation.

I currently spend the first 2/3 of the course on the litigation process and about the remaining 1/3 on personal jurisdiction and Erie. I am probably in the minority on this and it’s hard to find a casebook that is set up the way I prefer.

I do it this way because of my belief that only a detailed study of the litigation process reflected in the FRCP can convey a deep understanding of the American civil justice system and its strengths and weaknesses. For better or worse, we have a system that (until very recently) has deemphasized pleadings and uses discovery to lay the groundwork for settlement or summary judgment for those cases that make it into the system and is increasing reliant on ADR for those cases that don’t. Of late, the Supreme Court has seemingly raised the bar on pleadings in Twombley and Iqbal and reinvigorated motions to dismiss as a more meaningful part of the litigation process. One cannot understand what we do, how we do it, why the rest of the world thinks we are crazy, what is changing, and what needs to be changed without a large amount of class time, which of necessity limits the amount of time devoted to personal jurisdiction and Erie.

All this is driven by my view of in most litigation the law is easy, but the facts are hard. Discovery is where the facts come in. If you don’t understand how parties marshal, present, and protect facts from their files, from the real world, and from the other side through discovery then the students leave civ pro (and possibly law school) without any real clue how our civil justice system works. Read the rest of this post »

  October 12, 2009 at 9:56 am  Tags: ADR, Civil Procedure, discovery, Erie, federal rules of civil procedure, litigation process, personal jurisdiction, pleadings, subject matte jurisdiction, summary judgment, Twombley  Posted in: Civil Procedure, Education, Law Practice, Law School (Teaching), Legal Theory, Teaching   Print This Post   5 Comments

The Future of Education

posted by Jon Siegel

Zephyr Teachout, a law professor at Fordham, predicts in Slate today that the Internet will tear apart education much the same way it has affected newspapers.  In the future, says Professor Teachout, most classes will be offered online, students will pay by the class, a few big star teachers will get all the money, and the rest of us will be glorified TAs.  “Within a generation, college will be a mostly virtual experience for the average student,” Professor Teachout says, and degrees will come from education “aggregators” rather than traditional colleges.

Professor Teachout may be one of the big stars in the new order (well, her webpage at Fordham does say that she is “an immensely talented and creative scholar”) but I’m not buying her theory just yet.  If universities just sold educations, there’d be more to it.  As Professor Teachout observes, universities incur big expenses that may prove unnecessary in the digital age.  If we ran universities on a business basis, employed technology to the fullest degree, and got rid of a few bits of archaic nonsense such as tenure and scholarly research, I’m sure we could deliver education much more cheaply.

But universities also sell their students something else:  the reputational value of the degree.  An Internet “aggregator” of education services can’t duplicate that easily.  Part of the reputational value of a degree comes from just those aspects of a university that the Internet would shed:  having faculty who are research stars, not letting just anyone take classes, etc.  Face it: if you were making hiring decisions, would your first choice be someone who graduated from a virtual school?

I think the reputational value of the degree is a big part of what universities sell, and I don’t think the Internet is going to erode that so quickly as Professor Teachout seems to believe.  And that’s before we get to other things that real colleges offer, such as enjoyment, friendships, networking, and other things that come from actually being in the same place as your classmates.

Well, it’s always dangerous to say that the Internet won’t accomplish something.  And in fairness, Professor Teachout does say that the more elite, “brand name” universities will be less affected by the developments she foresees than smaller, less known institutions.  And that makes sense:  the less reputational value your degree has, the more you really are selling education.  But I don’t think my job is going to be outsourced to the Internet just yet.

  September 11, 2009 at 2:01 pm   Posted in: Education   Print This Post   4 Comments

The Art of Renaming

posted by Daniel Solove

If people don’t like something, the solution is often as simple as a name change.  Consider fish.  Some of the most popular fish today are renamed versions of less desirable fish.  Orange Roughy used to be called slimehead.  Chilean sea bass used to be called toothfish.  Monkfish used to be goosefish. The result of these name changes has been a dramatic increase in popularity, so much so that many renamed fish are now overfished and endangered.

The renaming trend is now spreading to academic courses. From the Boston Globe:

Boston College German studies professor Michael Resler went searching for a way to boost flagging interest in his “German Literature of the High Middle Ages’’ class a few years ago, and settled on the idea of simply giving the course a sexier name. The resulting “Knights, Castles, and Dragons’’ nearly tripled enrollment.

Resler then replaced his class on “The Songs of Walter von der Vogelweide,’’ a great German lyric poet, with “Passion, Politics, and Poetry in the Middle Ages.’’ Again, enrollment swelled.

“I suppose the moral of the story is that we live in an age where everything has to be marketed in order to find a willing audience,’’ Resler mused.

Maybe it’s time to rename law school classes:

Torts –> Crashes and Accidents

Criminal Law –> Murder Most Foul and Other Dastardly Crimes

Trusts & Estates –> Dead Hands: Power After Death

Corporate Law –> Gold and Parachutes

Property –> The Story of a Whale and a Fox

Hat tip: Inside Higher Ed

  September 8, 2009 at 7:32 am   Posted in: Culture, Education, Humor, Law School, Law School (Teaching)   Print This Post   10 Comments

For-Profit Colleges

posted by Sarah Waldeck

For-profit colleges such as Devry and Kaplan are coming under increased scrutiny by federal and state governments.  According to The Wall Street Journal, the Department of Education is considering changes that might result in students at for-profit colleges having less access to federal aid.  Meanwhile, Ohio’s governor and state legislature have agreed to eliminate the scholarships of 22,500 students attending for-profit colleges.  Next year New Jersey will reduce the aid of students at these colleges by almost 40 percent.  Read the rest of this post »

  July 28, 2009 at 9:13 am   Posted in: Education   Print This Post   5 Comments

Preserving Need-Blind Admissions

posted by Sarah Waldeck

Back in December, Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute called on President Obama to argue against the pro forma use of the bachelor’s degree as a job qualification.  Murray did not discount the value of broadening one’s horizons or of exploring subjects for their general interest.  But he argued that it was inappropriate to keep “the bachelor’s degree as the measure of job preparedness, as the minimal requirement to get your foot in the door for vast numbers of jobs that don’t really require a B.A. or B.S.”    This is particularly true, Murray wrote, when most 18-year-olds are not from wealthy families, are not attracted to academics, and “want to learn how to get a satisfying job that also pays well.”    As an alternative to the  bachelor’s degree, Murray recommended certification tests which would vary in form depending on the job. 

When I read Murray’s opinion piece, I thought his argument had intuitive appeal.  Most of us know people who are quite successful despite never having gone to college.  Most of us also know individuals who would have preferred a certification route to their current career, if that had been a viable option.   But I was troubled by the class implications of Murray’s proposal.  A bachelor’s degree will continue to have economic and social cachet for some time to come; parents with a tradition of higher education are most likely to push their children towards college despite a certification option; and certification is likely to become one more method of separating the haves from the have-nots.

I was reminded of the haves and have-nots when I read a recent New York Times article about Reed College dropping more than 100 financially-needy students from its admit list and substituting students who could afford the $50,000 yearly cost.  At least for now, Reed has determined that this is a better approach than spending more of its endowment or selling some of its real estate. 

One of the most interesting aspects of the Reed story is that Colin Diver, Reed’s president, is openly expressing frustratation about  the “country-club” investments that colleges make in order to attract students.   As the Times reports,

“The catering to consumer tastes — I keep trying to say, we are in the education business,” Mr. Diver said, describing the pressure to keep up with wealthier colleges and expressing a frustration rarely voiced publicly by college presidents. “The whole principle behind higher education is, we know something that you don’t. Therefore, we shouldn’t cater to them.”

But no college president wants to be first to make major changes in the college experience; Reed, for example, is not abandoning plans for a new performing arts center. “If we’re going to change our ways, we’re really going to need to be pushed,” Mr. Diver said, referring to colleges generally. “It’s not going to well up from within.”

So who could provide the push?  One possibility is donors, particularly significant ones.   Too often big donors gravitate towards buildings and other facilities with naming rights; these same sort of projects fuel what the Times referred to as an “academic arms race reliant on tuition increases and fund-raising.”   Colleges could help foster this change by making the naming rights that come with, say, need-based scholarships as attractive and public as those that come with buildings.  This suggestion may verge on change welling up from within, but if the prospect of axing poor but qualified students isn’t enough, it’s not clear what will be.

  June 16, 2009 at 11:22 am   Posted in: Education   Print This Post   One Comment

The Heart of a Center

posted by Jacqueline Lipton

So here’s a question for people thinking about the nature of law schools and the nature of scholarship (and with thanks to Mike Madison for picking up on my invitation to blog more about his research deanship).

I’ve talked to a lot of folks at a lot of schools with different philosophies on law school centers.  Even folks within the same school often have widely divergent views about what law school centers can and should be doing for the overall law school enterprise.  And of course, it must be acknolwedged that centers can serve a variety of different functions within a law school – and different individual centers can have different individual roles.

So my question is whether there is any way to get to the heart of the center question.  Are there one or more key ideals that all centers in law schools should be able to live up to, or to contribute to the school?  And, if so, is it something other than:  “It’s a marketing device to attract faculty/students.”  (Not that there’s anything wrong with that – I’m asking the question out of legitimate interest.)

We’ve been talking about this recently at my school and the question is of particular interest here because we have a number of different centers that were set up under vastly different conditions for vastly different purposes.  Some are research focused and obtain grant funding.  At least one has a private endowment.  Some take advantage of collections of faculty who specialize in particular subject areas.  Presumably none of them are cost-neutral for the school, although none of them drain big bucks out of the budget either.

There are always political questions within faculty about centers and the role of faculty who happen to operate as center directors (I plead guilty to the charge of being a center director).  “Why does s/he get [a lighter teaching load/a director's stipend/a dedicated administrative support person/_______]?”  Pick one or fill in the blank.

But politics aside, what do centers ideally contribute/potentially detract from a school? Read the rest of this post »

  May 12, 2009 at 2:17 pm  Tags: law centers  Posted in: Education, Law School, Law School (Scholarship), Law School (Teaching)   Print This Post   One Comment

Gifts With Strings Attached

posted by Sarah Waldeck

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal reported on how Trinity College is facing scrutiny from the Connecticut Attorney General over its plan to use part of a $9 million endowment from the late Shelby Cullom Davis to fund scholarships for international students. Both Davis’s daughter and the professor who holds the Davis chair believe that Trinity’s plan violates the restrictions that Davis placed on his gift.

The Journal article states that “[r]estricted gifts can account for as much as three-quarters of a university’s endowment.” It is true that specific universities or colleges might have an endowment in which three-quarters of the funds are restricted. But data from the National Association of College and University Business Officers shows that 45 percent of endowment funds at private institutions are unrestricted. Furthermore, universities can exert considerable influence over whether gifts are restricted and the precise terms of the gift.

Universities spend lots of time and money cultivating donors and helping shape their giving preferences. This is one of the functions of so-called “named gift opportunities.” The cultivated gifts often pay for expenditures the institution would have made even without a gift, thereby allowing the university to redirect funds to current expenses or into the endowment itself. Research has also shown that corporations, foundations and alumni each favor different sorts of projects. This means that a university can help determine the sorts of gifts it is likely to receive through careful allocation of its development staff.

This is not to suggest that all donors are malleable. Some have very definite ideas. Mr. Davis, for example, said no when Trinity asked whether it could use the endowment as it thought appropriate “as conditions evolved and opportunities arose.” But simply focusing on the amount of restricted funds overstates the extent to which donors tie the hands of universities.

  April 24, 2009 at 1:15 pm   Posted in: Education   Print This Post   No Comments

The Debt Calculation

posted by Sarah Waldeck

Here’s a recommendation that appeared in a recent New York Times article about the burden of student loans. According to Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FastWeb.com and FinAid.org, “Do not borrow more than your expected starting salary for your entire undergraduate education.” I don’t know the rule of thumb for graduate students, but I imagine it’s something similar. (If anyone does know the recommendation, please comment and pass it along.)

The upshot is that individuals who are deciding where to go to law school should pay very close attention to the amount of debt associated with each of their options. Moreover, as these individuals assess their likely total debt, they should be pessimistic about their future earning potential. The average first year salaries reported by law schools are a snapshot of what graduates were earning before the current crisis, not what graduates are earning now. And many experts are predicting that the current crisis will change the law firm model in ways that may profoundly affect compensation.

Put differently, if you are entering a 1L class in the Fall of 2009, graduation is only 37 months away. How much debt do you think you can manage just three years from now?

  April 22, 2009 at 8:20 pm   Posted in: Education   Print This Post   6 Comments

Distance Education

posted by Sarah Waldeck

On Tuesday President Obama announced that by 2020 the United States will have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. This admirable goal will be difficult to deliver. The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education recently reported that college tuition and fees rose 439 percent between 1982 – 2007, while median family income rose only 147 percent. The Center’s president commented, “If we go on this way for another 25 years, we won’t have an affordable system of higher education.”

Something has got to give. Yesterday’s Times reported that some colleges are experimenting with three-year programs that enable students to save a year’s tuition. I’ve often thought that the number of freshmen who “go away to college” will shrink dramatically in coming years, because students will be forced to stay closer to home to avoid room and board fees. But something more dramatic will be required to really address the problem of runaway costs.

On-line or distance learning, which reduces labor costs and pretty much eliminates the need for a physical plant, is one way to tackle the problem. I’ve always had a hard time even contemplating on-line learning. But I’m beginning to suspect that this is a failure of imagination on my part.

Read the rest of this post »

  February 26, 2009 at 4:38 pm   Posted in: Education   Print This Post   3 Comments

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