Law School Academic Support Blog

The ASP Blog is Going on Vacation

The editorial staff members for the ASP Blog are taking next week off (August 13 - 17).  Like many of you, we are trying to catch our collective breath before the new semester is in full swing.  We hope that all of you will have some rest and relaxation time as well.  See you at the beginning of the next semester!   

New Contributing Editor

David Nadvorney, the ASP blog's new contributing editor, is the Director of the Irene Diamond Professional Skills Center at City University of New York School of Law and has been involved in providing academic support in law schools for many years. He's excited about editing the blog, which he hopes will be an outlet for expression, reaction, feedback, and support for his new experience this semester of teaching an academic support section of first-years torts.  We are thrilled to have David on board. (dbw)

Another Addition to the Editorial Team

I am beginning to feel as though we're getting away with something as I look at the new folks who are joining our editorial team.  Today I have the pleasure of welcoming Michael Schwartz onto the blog as a contributing editor.

Mike has been teaching law for fifteen years.  Six years ago, after nine years as a doctrinal professor, he "begged his way into a hybrid doctrinal/academic support slot."  Mike, who is in his first year at Washburn University School of Law, oversees and teaches Washburn’s First Week Program, an eighteen-hour, self-regulated learning curriculum integrated into his and a colleague’s torts classes; oversees a structured study group program for all entering Washburn students; and oversees the law school’s bar pass program, which he has integrated into his remedies class.

He is the author of Expert Learning for Law Students and a co-author (with Denise Riebe) of Pass the Bar!, both published by Carolina Academic Press.  His Remedies/Bar Pass hybrid text (co-athored with Carole Buckner) is forthcoming from Carolina Academic Press in Spring 2008. 

His teaching and learning scholarship includes two recent law review articles on teaching and learning: "Teaching Law By Design: How Learning Theory and Instructional Design Can Inform and Reform Law Teaching," 38 SAN DIEGO L. REV. 347 (2001), and "Teaching Law Students to be Self-Regulated Learners," MICH. ST. L. REV. 447 (2003), as well as shorter teaching and learning pieces addressing best practices in law school course web page design and the process of creating instructional objectives.  Mike is also a contributing author to Best Practices of Law Schools for Preparing Students to Practice Law (a CLEA publication forthcoming December 2006) and is on the Steering Committee for that project.  He also serves on the Board of Directors of Humanizing Legal Education.

Mike has presented his work on teaching and learning to the law faculties at Hastings, Mercer, Santa Clara, UDC, Albany, the John Marshall Law School (Chicago), John Marshall Law School (Atlanta), North Carolina Central, and Southern New England.  This year, he is scheduled to present to the State Bar of New York and to the law faculties at UMKC Wisconsin. (dbw)

The Newest Member of Our Editorial Team

We're welcoming another familiar face to the blog today.  Amy Jarmon is joining us as a contributing editor.  She has a long history of helping students succeed, and we are looking forward to hearing from her regularly on the blog.

Amy was hired to develop the first academic success program for Texas Tech School of Law in 2004.  Although her program serves all 650 law students, she works also with students on probation and teaches in the month-long Introduction to Legal Studies course for entering 1L students whose predictors are lower than those of their classmates. Prior to her move to Texas, Amy was the Director of Academic Success Programs and Acting Assistant Dean for Law Student Services at University of Akron School of Law. 

In her first career, Amy worked in decanal positions with undergraduate students for 17 years and spent 10 of those years working in a “bridge position” between Student Affairs and Academic Affairs to assist students in achieving their potential inside and outside the classroom.  Amy is a licensed attorney in Virginia and on the Roll of Solicitors for England and Wales.  She teaches Comparative Law: The English Legal System as an elective course for upper-division students. (dbw)

My New Co-editor

As we begin looking toward the new semester, I want to take a moment to welcome Liz Stillman as my new co-editor.  Liz took on the role of contributing editor this last school year as I was coming on as co-editor with Dennis Tonsing.  Liz's posts have been a delight to read, and she is an exceptionally charming person with whom to work, so I am thrilled to have her join me in handling the primary responsibilities for the ASP blog.

I also want to thank Dennis Tonsing for his exemplary service as co-editor of the blog and for asking me to join him a year ago.  Dennis is taking a well-deserved rest from the duties of co-editor, but he'll still be around as a contributing editor; so we'll all continue to enjoy his musings, advice, and insights. 

So thanks, Dennis, and welcome, Liz. I'm looking forward to another year working with both of you. (dbw)

"New Kid on the Blog"

Please welcome Dan Weddle, Director of Academic Support at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, as co-editor for this blog.  In his first post, Dan refers to himself as “the new kid on the block,” but he has been a frequent visitor to our block for some time, just not as an ASP director. 

I first met Dan when he recruited me to teach in the Council on Legal Education Opportunity’s (CLEO) Attitude Is Essential Weekends, which Dan designed and directed as a crash course law school preparation program targeting students from disadvantaged backgrounds.  Dan had been working with CLEO since the late ‘90s, when he brought in the first two CLEO Summer Institutes UMKC had ever hosted.  He has been directing Attitude Is Essential Weekends every summer since 2002, recruiting academic support types from all over the country to teach students who were unable to attend the longer Summer Institutes.

Dan’s prior experience also includes twelve years as a middle school and high school English teacher, including five years as an academic dean responsible for curriculum development and faculty development.  He left teaching to attend law school at the University of Kansas and practiced civil litigation until joining UMKC in 1996.  During the 1999-2000 school year, he was tapped to serve as an interim assistant dean of UMKC’s School of Education.

For a new kid on the block, he knows the neighborhood better than he thinks.  (djt)

Census of Law Professor Bloggers

This morning's PrawfsBlawg has an interesting census of the current law professor blogging population.  They report that 103 law professors currently blog; we have 24 law professors who blog as part of our Law Professor Blogs Network.

PrawfsBlawg notes that of the 103 law professor bloggers, 80.6% (83) are male and 19.4% (20) are female.  The comparable numbers for the 24 members of the Law Professor Blogs Network:  62.5% (15) male and 37.5% (9) female.

Here are the law schools with the most law professor bloggers:

Law Schools with Most Law Prof Bloggers
School	Number of Bloggers
San Diego	7
Cincinnati	4
George Mason	4
Ohio State	4
UCLA	4
George Washington	4
Stanford	4
St. Thomas	4
Chapman	4

Juris Novus Featuring Blogs from the Law Professor Blogs Network

Juris Novus, law blog aggregator, is proud to announce a collaboration with Law Professor Blogs. Juris Novus will be featuring a rotating cast of blogs from the Law Professor Blog network.

Keeping up with the blogsphere is a daunting task as new blogs come online daily. Juris Novus provides order and centralization, pulling together relevant headlines and presenting them on a single page.

Law professors greatly influence the legal blogsphere. Academia demands a clear writing voice and current knowledge of legal ongoings. Successful blogging demands the same, it comes as no surprise that professors have risen to the top of the law blogsphere. In honor of those law professors who have contributed to the rich culture of the legal blogsphere, Juris Novus features a heavier balance of law professor blogs.

Juris Novus is updated three times an hour and stores headlines on a history page when you miss a day. Save time and simplify your day with Juris Novus. Thank you for making the legal blogsphere a better place!

The Law Professor Blogs Network is proud to announce a collaboration with Juris Novus, one of the finest law blog aggregators online. Juris Novus will be featuring a rotating cast of blogs from our Network.

LexisNexis Sponsors Law Professor Blogs Network

We are thrilled to announce that LexisNexis has agreed to sponsor all of the blogs in our Law Professor Blogs Network:

• AntitrustProf Blog (Shubha Ghosh (SUNY Buffalo))
• ContractsProf Blog (Carol Chomsky (Minnesota) & Frank Snyder (Texas-Wesleyan))
• CrimProf Blog (Jack Chin (Arizona) & Mark Godsey (Cincinnati))
• Health Law Prof Blog (Betsy Malloy (Cincinnati) & Tom Mayo (SMU))
• LaborProf Blog (Rafael Gely (Cincinnati))
• Law Librarian Blog (Joe Hodnicki (Cincinnati)) 
• Law School Academic Support Blog (Dennis Tonsing (Roger Williams))
• Media Law Prof Blog (Cristina Corcos (LSU))
• Sentencing Law & Policy Blog (Douglas Berman (Ohio State))
• White Collar Crime Prof Blog (Peter Henning (Wayne State) & Ellen Podgor (Georgia State))
• TaxProf Blog (Paul Caron (Cincinnati))
• Tech Law Prof Blog (Jonathan Ezor (Touro) & Michelle Zakarin (Touro))
• Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog (Gerry Beyer (St. Mary's))

LexisNexis shares our vision for expanding the network into other areas of law, so please email us if you would be interested in finding out more about starting a blog as part of our network.

A Place to Gather

Keeping with the tradition of blogging (well, it may be a bit premature to write of a "tradition"), Richard and I are hoping that members of the Law School Academic Support community around the country will find this site a place to gather.  It's time we have a central repository to post our ideas, strategies, theories and __________ (this is interactive - you fill in the blank).  Check in from time to time and let others know what's on your mind.

Dennis