Law School Academic Support Blog

Serve on an AASE Committee

Committees are integral to the growth and development of AASE. Please consider joining a committee. It is through your work through committees that we are able to achieve so much from year to year. The process of signing up for an AASE committee generally occurs at the AASE conference, and without a conference this year, we must adapt. Some of you signed up for committees as you registered and paid dues. 

 

For those of you who did not sign up for a committee or are interested in signing up for a different committee, please sign up using this link. For a description of the committees and the tasks they undertook this year, please see the end of the year report presented by AASE Past President Antonia Miceli.

Introducing the 2020-2021 AASE Board

It is with great pleasure that we introduce the new Association of Academic Support Educators' Executive Board.

2020-2021 AASE Executive Board

President: DeShun Harris, The University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphrey's School of Law

DeShun Harris joined the law faculty at the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law in 2018 as Assistant Clinical Professor of Law and Director of Bar Preparation. She has been teaching academic support and bar support since 2011. Her research and teaching interests include educational psychology, assessment, and critical race theory.

Fun facts:

• DeShun's number one bucket list item is to visit every city with an NBA team
• She still sends postcards in the mail
• She's a foodie

President-Elect: Melissa Hale, Loyola University Chicago School of Law

Melissa Hale is the Director of Academic Success and Bar Programs at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Melissa oversees seven courses related to bar programming (teaching 2 of them), as well as overseeing academic tutors, and planning various bar related programming for the school.

Melissa is currently a contributor to the academic support blog, a Law School and Bar Exam Study Skills CALI fellow, and is writing a guide to the UBE with Past President Antonia Miceli.

In the past, Professor Hale has served as vice president of LawTutors, LLC, where she provided individual and group bar exam tutoring, trained other instructors, and created and edited bar preparation materials, including Aspen Publisher’s What Not to Write series, and Blond's Multistate Bar Exam. She has also served as an instructor for Emanuel Bar Review and Themis Bar Review. Before becoming a teacher, she worked in private practice in Massachusetts, specializing in small businesses and workers’ compensation.  

Melissa graduated with a Bachelors of Science in political science and psychology from Central Michigan University, and earned her juris doctorate from New England School of Law in Boston. She resides in Chicago with her husband their 2 cats, Iggy and Lemmy.

Fun Facts:

• Melissa  used to be a fairly serious ballet dancer
• She once worked for the Brazilian Ice Sport Federation (It's a thing)
• Her first job was as "donut girl" at a cider mill

Past President: Antonia Miceli, Saint Louis University School of Law

Antonia Miceli, JD, MPH, is a Professor at St. Louis University, where she serves as the Director of Academic Support and Bar Exam Preparation.  In this role, she has developed and taught Introduction to Legal Studies, Legal Methods, Advanced Legal Methodology, and Advanced Legal Analysis and Strategies.  She also developed and conducts SLU LAW’s Early Bird Bar Prep Workshop Series for graduating 3Ls and SLU LAW’s Bar Prep Essay Workshop Series for alumni preparing for the February and July bar exams.  Prof. Miceli currently serves as the Past President of the Association of Academic Support Educators and serves on the Editorial Board of the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI).  She is a member of the California, Missouri, Illinois, and District of Columbia Bars, and is also admitted to practice before the United States District Court, Eastern District of Missouri.  Most recently, Prof. Miceli completed her MPH in Epidemiology from St. Louis University School of Public Health and Social Justice and is Certified in Public Health.

Fun Facts:

• Toni is surrounded by boys; her husband, her two sons, and her dog
• She loves to cook and bake, particularly with her older son who has become obsessed with cake decorating

Vice President of Diversity: Yolonda Sewell, Western Michigan University - Cooley Law School

Professor Sewell joined the WMU-Cooley Law School law faculty in January 2020 as a Visiting Professor. Professor Sewell teaches Introduction to Law, directs the Dean’s Fellows teaching academy, and oversees the Tampa Bay bar exam coaching program. She currently serves as the secretary of the Law School Admissions Council Minority Network.

Prior to joining WMU-Cooley, Professor Sewell served as the Assistant Director of Academic Support & Bar Services at Texas A&M University School of Law. There, she taught Preparing for the Bar Exam, directed a comprehensive peer education teaching assistant program, and facilitated the bar preparation program for both J.D. and LL.M students. Professor Sewell served as a standing member of the Diversity Council and created a Young Scholars program for local high school students interested in pursuing legal education.

Professor Sewell received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and Psychology from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. She obtained her juris doctorate from Texas Tech University School of Law.

Fun Facts:

• Yolonda loves breakfast food. She can eat breakfast ANYTIME of the day.
• She loves, loves, loves puzzles – crosswords, jigsaw, and sudoku.
• She enjoys traveling.
• She speaks French though her fluency is waning from being in Texas for so long.

Treasurer: Twinette Johnson, University of District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law

Professor Johnson is a Professor of Law at the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law (UDC LAW).  She also directs the School of Law’s Academic Success program.

Prior to joining the UDC LAW faculty in 2017, Professor Johnson was an Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Academic Success Program at Southern Illinois University School of Law.  There, she taught Agency and Partnership, Introduction to Commercial Law, Higher Education and Democracy (a writing seminar), Lawyering Skills, Advanced Legal Analysis and Strategies (a bar exam readiness course) and Professionalism and the Law.

Professor Johnson’s previous professional experience includes a clerkship on the Missouri Supreme Court with Judge W. Duane Benton. She also held a position as an associate attorney with Shearman and Sterling, LLP, a New York based law firm. There, she practiced in the Bank Finance group where she represented financial institutions and corporations in investment grade and noninvestment grade financing transactions.

Professor Johnson’s research interests include higher education access policy and learning theory models in legal education.

Professor Johnson earned her Ph.D. in Public and Social Policy from Saint Louis University, her J.D. from Tulane University School of Law and her B.A. in English Literature from Saint Louis University. 

Treasurer-Elect: Laura Mott, CUNY School of Law

Laura is the Director of Academic Support for the 1L Evening Program at CUNY School of Law. Laura teaches Skills, 1L Lawyering, and has served as a bar mentor in CUNY’s Bar Support program since 2012. She has also taught legal writing and academic skills courses in the New York State Court System’s Legal Education Opportunity (LEO) Program, a summer program designed to prepare incoming law students from underserved communities for their first semester of law school. She has presented on best practices in designing academic support programs for part-time and evening students, and on issues related to associated general evening curriculum design and execution.

Laura is interested in how varying chronobiological levels on both individual and group levels affect short- and long-term doctrinal absorption and analytic dexterity in law school learning contexts. Her developing environmental research uses various social justice lenses to propose better public participation and consultation processes for national and international environmental decision-making.

Prior to teaching, Laura worked at the New York Environmental Law & Justice Project, at the Environmental Justice Initiative for Haiti, and was a Fellow in the New York City Environmental Law Leadership Institute. Laura also represented tenants facing eviction in NYC housing courts, and managed large discovery projects for complex civil litigation matters in the areas of antitrust, patent, securities, insurance, and M & A.

Laura holds a B.A. from Rutgers University, Douglass College, a J.D. from CUNY School of Law, and an LL.M cum laude in Environmental Law from the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University. During law school, she co-founded the student Environmental Law Society and served on the executive board of the New York City Law Review. Prior to law school, she worked in archaeology and cultural resource management. Laura is a member of the National Lawyers Guild and the Environmental Law Section of the NYSBA.

Fun facts:

• Laura’s first job was in a pumpkin patch
• Laura really likes to play basketball
• Laura has yet to decide whether she is a dog or cat person!

Secretary: Goldie Pritchard, Michigan State University College of Law

Goldie Pritchard, JD, M.Ed., currently serves as Director of the Academic Success Program and Adjunct Professor at Michigan State University College of Law. Pritchard founded the current Academic Success Program in 2009. Since 2009, she has supported law students as they navigate their academic careers and prepare for the bar exam by developing and implementing several programs, courses, and one-on-one interactions. She embraces the challenge of deciphering how to best support individual students as they prepare to become academically successful and succeed on the bar exam.

Pritchard has served the academic support community over the years by participating in and taking on leadership roles with AASE and AALS Section on Academic Support. Pritchard earned a BA from the University of California Davis, a JD from Seattle University School of Law, and a MEd in Higher Education with an emphasis on College Student Affairs Leadership from Grand Valley State University.

Fun Facts:

• Goldie has lived in 4 African countries
• She enjoys changing her hair a few times a year, so she is not offended when not recognized at first
• She dislikes taking pictures but will take pictures of others

Host School Representative: Joni Wiredu, American University Washington College of Law

Joni Wiredu currently serves as Director of the Office of Academic Excellence and Adjunct Faculty at American University Washington College of Law (AUWCL) in Washington, D.C. As Director of Academic Excellence, at the sixth largest law school in the country, Ms. Wiredu leads an office supporting the academic achievement and bar exam preparation for over 1200 law students, sitting for bar exams in more than 20 jurisdictions. At AUWCL, Ms. Wiredu is responsible for spearheading strategic and innovative programing related to academic advising, academic planning, and increasing students’ bar exam preparedness. She regularly counsels students on best academic practices in law school and provides targeted planning assistance to improve students’ educational outcomes. In July 2018, less than two years after its inception, Ms. Wiredu’s office earned AUWCL’s ‘Outstanding Teamwork and Creativity Award’ for the office that contributed to AUWCL in the most creative and exceptionally effective manner. Ms. Wiredu is a widely respected lecturer on essay writing and bar exam study skills. She teaches Advanced Legal Analysis, a 3L course designed to increase bar exam readiness. Additionally, she serves on AUWCL’s Committee on Academic Excellence, which is responsible for implementing and supervising academic training and coursework at AUWCL. Prior to her appointment at AUWCL, Ms. Wiredu served as senior director at a major bar review company, where she amassed 14 years of experience - training hundreds of students on best practices for studying for the bar exam and crafting appropriate strategies for bar examination success. She earned a BA from Dartmouth College and a JD from William & Mary Law School. She resides in Maryland with her husband and teenage daughter. ​

Host School Representative-Elect: Zoe Niesel, St. Mary’s University School of Law

Zoe Niesel joined the law faculty at St. Mary’s University School of Law in 2016 as an Assistant Professor of Law.  She currently serves as the Director of Statistics and Assessment. In that capacity, she spends her time preparing St. Mary’s students for the challenges of law school and the bar exam by utilizing data to pinpoint best practices and drive success. In addition, she teaches Civil Procedure, Administrative Law, Bar Prep for Credit, and a writing seminar on stolen art.

Fun Facts:

• • Zoe has 3 cats – Darwin, Lego, and Smokey!
  • She is a  passionate gluten free home baker
  • She loves hiking the trails of the Texas hill country

Request for Online Teaching Summit

Last week, the Legal Skills Prof Blog highlighted a request from Dean Daniel Rodriguez from Northwestern to hold a virtual summit on how to provide online legal education.  You can read the Legal Skills' post here.  Dean Rodriguez's original post is here.

The desire for the online summit is great.  I agree that we should increase training to deliver quality legal education online.  I also want to point out that AASE and leaders within the ASP community started doing that in March, and we haven't stopped.  Maybe they weren't the grand summit requested, but they did provide tips to help everyone navigate the new normal.  I encourage others to promote the online summit, but I want to take a short moment to also give credit to those who already stepped up.  You all were forward thinking and ahead of the curve.  Great job!

(Steven Foster)

Reliance Interests

One thing that most of us probably don't full appreciate until we miss it is degree to which we rely on predictability.  When things are going well, it is often largely because so many things are doing just what we expect them to do, without us having to think about it.  When every paycheck is direct deposited, when every mocha latte tastes just like you like it, when your spouse kisses you every morning and your favorite TV show is on every evening, it's all part of one grand comfortable life.  It is not simply or even primarily the easy and convenience that makes it comfortable.  It's the reassurance that comes with knowing that, and understanding how, cause leads to effect.  Things happen because we make them happen, or if not, at least we expected them to happen, and all that generates confidence and a sense of efficacy.

Suddenly we enter an alternative universe in which supermarkets run out of the most basic, boring staples, like flour; in which basic medical precautions like hand washing might be useless because you were unknowingly infected two weeks ago; in which jobs and income just disappear for even the most conscientious employees; in which graduating with a degree, even with honors, from a decent law school may not even be enough to permit you to take a bar examination, let alone begin earning a living.  All of these are aggravating, and some have potentially dire consequences.  But taken as a whole, their greatest effect on us may be that they are contradicting our assumptions about how the world reliably runs.  

Trust is like a vitamin.  When we haven't got a minimum daily requirement -- when there are too many things in our lives that we can't rely on -- it's like a psychic scurvy.  Instead of bruising easily and losing our teeth, we panic easily and lose our self-confidence.  The cortisol levels in our bloodstreams shoot up, because in an unpredictable world we always have to be prepared to fight or flee.  We can't concentrate, we are easily rattled, we might even suffer illness because of it.  It's hard.  We need to be able to rely on some things to perform well.

This is one of the reasons that humans invented lawyers in the first place.  We needed more people we could trust to rely on.  We needed people who could develop frameworks of predictable rules so that we would not feel that conflicts were resolved arbitrarily.  Lawyers are a testament to the human craving for reliability.

And in order to make lawyers that clients can rely on, we need to teach students to rely on themselves, on their own capabilities and judgment.  And this does not happen overnight.  First we teach them that they can rely on others -- on their professors to teach them how the law works and on mentors to show them the ropes -- then that they can rely on systems, like legislatures and administrative bodies, and then ultimately on themselves.  You know these rules and how to apply them.  You understand how to navigate bureaucracy, at least enough to find your way through any new one you encounter.  You know how to come up with solutions, how to suggest them to other interested parties, how to negotiate a compromise.  You're a cause that has effect, because you are a lawyer.

Even with everything going well in law school, though -- and it may not be, at least not for every student, given the range of burdens that they are shouldering -- when the rest of the world is telling you that you can't eat in your favorite restaurant, that the only available toilet paper is the Want Ads section of your local paper, and it may be more than a year before you can begin working, it can be really easy to spend all your time on edge, trembling at the unclear implications of every announcement from the school or your state bar examiners.  And when it is easy to be that anxious, it is usually hard to study, focus, work efficiently, and present yourself to the world as a new lawyer.

So, lately, I've been thinking of how Academic Support professionals are kind of like psychic vitamin supplements.  In a world in which everybody feels that so many things are less reliable now, we are telling our students, "Look, you can trust us.  We'll explain the right answer; we'll send you feedback on your writing; we will find and share information you might not be able to access yourselves.  But we will also teach you that you can trust yourselves.  You're learning the rules you need to learn.  You're developing the writing and analytical and persuasive skills you need as tools to cause the effects you want.  You're going to develop the judgment that makes a good counselor, and some day other people will come to rely on you."

All of that messaging is what we do on a good day.  Lately, I feel like I have had to up my game to extra strength multivitamin levels.  Making myself available for conferences more frequently; responding to emails super-promptly, before students can feel ignored; finding additional resources for students in increasingly dire straits because of the current crisis.  Maybe this is really the core of what Academic Support does best at times like these: by actions that show our students that they can rely on us, we help them see they can rely on their professors, on the law, on the system, so that they can better learn to rely on themselves.  

[Bill MacDonald]

Blog Posts Helping with Final Exams

Halle Hara pulled together a team of collaborators to create an Exam Series for the Law School Playbook. Last Monday was the first of ten posts on exams that I created together with Amanda Bynum (Professor of Practice, Law | Director, Bar & Academic Success | The University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law); Shane Dizon (Associate Professor of Academic Success | Director, Academic Success Program | Brooklyn Law School); Jacquelyn Rogers (Associate Professor of Law | Academic Success & Bar Preparation | Southwestern Law School); and Sarira A. Sadeghi, Esq. (The Sam & Ash Director of Academic Achievement | Dale E. Fowler School of Law at Chapman University). I really enjoyed working together virtually. It made this time of social distancing far less lonely and was a great testament to what you can accomplish when you work as a team!

The first post, on setting up your physical space, can be found here:

https://www.lawschoolplaybook.com/30day-challenge/the-exam-series-setting-up-your-physical-space-for-exams-week-4-day-1

The remaining nine topics will post daily in the Law School Playbook’s 30-Day Challenge.  Also check out the bonus post on gathering exam supplies—something our students might overlook until the last moment.

 

Promoting ASP

As we saw on the listserv last week, many within ASP fight for status and to be heard.  We desire to help students, but we also want to be acknowledged for the work we do within law schools.  I am proud of the way our community coalesced over the last couple years to promote our profession.  Marsha Griggs intentionally tries to cite to other ASP authors.  We promote colleagues scholarship on the blog and listserv to increase  downloads.  The community is fighting together to promote all of us.  As I watched the stream of emails about faculty not wanting ASPers to help students in their section, I was proud to see Sara Berman's blog post.  She gave credit to and promoted the hard work this community has done in response to COVID-19 and the rush of bar exam postponements.  She also argued for new solutions for licensure.  You can read here post here.

The ASP community is amazing.  I am lucky to be a part of it.

(Steven Foster)

Congrats Marsha Griggs and Kevin Sherrill

Congratulations to Marsha Griggs and Kevin Sherrill for being picked up by the AALS news feed.  The feed includes links to quality blog posts and news stories.  They included Marsha's The Other Side of Bar Prep post and Kevin's guest post The Art of Being Clutch - Part 2.

You can see their links on the news feed here.  You can also go to the first page of the feed to see the most up to date links.

 

 

 

Congrats to Melissa Hale for Top 10 Award!!!

Congrats to Melissa Hale for being recognized by the Texas Bar Today.  Her post Keep Calm and .... Make Things Up was recognized as one of the top 10 legal blog posts last week.

Keep up the good work!

AALS Section on Academic Support Leadership, and Honoring Laurie Zimet!

This year, I ended my holiday travels with a trip to AALS in Washington, DC. Now that I'm back to normalcy post travel, or at least what passes as normal in academic support, I thought I'd share a bit about our section's AALS Leadership, and our award recipient!

First and foremost, I'd like to officially welcome Jamie Kleppetsch, Director of Bar Passage at DePaul College of Law in Chicago, as the AALS Academic Support Section Chair. Jamie has been doing bar passage work since 2008, and I know she will lead our section to amazing things. I am looking forward to working with her, as I am the new chair-elect! In our leadership, we also have Kirsha Trychta, the Director of the Academic Excellence Center at West Virginia University as our Secretary, and Joe Buffington, Director of Bar Success at Albany Law School as our treasurer. I'm excited to work with this amazing group of people!

Most importantly, the section recognized Academic Support leader and trailblazer, Laurie Zimet. Laurie is the Director of Academic Support at UC Hastings, and is regarded as an expert and founder in the field of academic support. She even coined the term "Asp-ish!". In fact, Laurie was a founding member of the AALS section on Academic Support, so it is more than fitting that the section pay their respects!

While anyone that has met Laurie, or seen her present, knows exactly why she was deserving of this award, I wanted to include some quotes from some members that nominated her.

"She is a resource of incredible wisdom and insight, and she always makes time to check in with other professionals to track their career development.  Whether it focuses on professional concerns, program development, and/or enhancing individual skills, Laurie has served our community tirelessly.  Her thoughtful guidance has improved academic support programs across the country.  She has also been a staunch advocate of academic support professionals by educating countless members of the academy of the importance of our field and the necessity of job security for those in our field." And "In addition, her expertise in teaching is known nationwide.  She was an early proponent of active learning in the classroom, which has had a ripple effect on countless professors." Both of these descriptions from Pavel Wonsowicz at UCLA. I think Pavel sums up what those of us that know Laurie think.

In addition, from Kris Franklin, at New York Law School, Laurie is one of the true originators of our discipline, a mentor and foremother to uncountable past and present academic support professionals, and a widely-admired leading voice in legal education. Recognition of her unique contributions to the profession is fitting and probably overdue." Kris is not wrong, and continues to say "Laurie is a recognized expert in active learning and in ASP program design. She has frequently consulted with law schools that were seeking to open or expand academic support programming. In so doing, she helped create jobs in the field, and she directly or indirectly opened the door for many of those working in ASP positions today.

Laurie has always been seen as an unusually vibrant speaker and educator. She has given hundreds of talks at law schools and academic support conferences around the country, all of which helped further the field and inspire those working in it. As just one example, together with Paula Lustbader she was a frequent and early presenter at the AALS Workshop for New Law Professors. Those talks brought the student-centered learning so central to ASP work to a generation of entering law teachers nationwide.

Perhaps most endearingly, as the invited keynote speaker at an LSAC-sponsored ASP conference in Miami, Laurie coined the immediately-recognizable term “ASPish.” We may not be able to fully capture in words the many qualities that the term includes, but… we know ASPish when we see it. Laurie embodies it."  

She really does. Congrats to Laurie!

(Melissa Hale)

 

W

 

 

Takeaways from the 2020 AALS Annual Meeting

You have so much to explore and express, but . . .  you may be asking yourself, is my story good enough? The answer is yes! – Schan B. Ellis

I can think of no better way to begin the new year than by sending kudos to the AALS Section on Academic Support, the executive board, and the planning committee for a fabulous panel session. If you did not attend the AALS Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, you missed a treat. The Academic Support session held on Friday, January 3, was attended by law school deans and administrators, clinical and doctrinal faculty outside of ASP, testing and learning specialists, and academic support professionals. To a standing-room-only crowd, a diverse panel of presenters shared their research and insights on the role of faculty in delivering academic support, academic archetypes that signal risks of law school underperformance and bar exam failure, potential gender biases in standardized testing, and bar examination, and the impact of bar exam cut scores on diversity in the legal profession.

I have attended the annual meeting many times. From New York to New Orleans, and from San Diego to Washington, AALS provides a unique opportunity to connect with professors and law school professionals in a welcoming smorgasbord of panel presentations and enriching roundtable sessions. Although I am a veteran AALS attendee, this year I saw the conference through the lens of a presenter for the very first time. I had become quite comfortable listening to and learning from others, and this time I sat at the presenters’ table instead of in the audience.

To say that I was nervous would be an understatement of enormous proportion. Even more daunting was the intimidating company of expert co-panelists that I found myself in. My panel included tenured professor and renowned ASP scholar Catherine Christopher from Texas Tech; published textbook author Jane Grise from the University of Kentucky; and Dean emeritus and UNLV law professor Joan Howarth. I was so busy taking notes from their presentations that I could barely focus on my own.

My point to anyone who has an article idea in gestation: do not convince yourself that you don’t have something worthwhile to say. I was so impressed by how broadly attended the session was, and I could only think that we need more novice scholars to share their works in progress and innovative ideas for the good of the profession. I encourage my ASP colleagues to respond to the call for proposals for the 2020 AASE Conference and the 2021 AALS Section on Academic Support session. It was a fabulous experience for me . . . and if I can do it, surely you can too.

(Marsha Griggs)

Welcome Melissa Hale as a Contributing Editor to the Blog

Please welcome Melissa Hale as a contributing editor of the blog.  Melissa will be posting her perspectives on Wednesdays.  For those of you who have not had the pleasure of meeting Melissa at a conference, I copied her bio below.  

Melissa is currently the Director of Academic Success and Bar Programs at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.  Prior to joining Loyola University Chicago School of Law, Professor Hale (Gill) served as a member of the faculty at the University of District of Columbia’s David A. Clarke School of Law, and the University of Massachusetts School of Law, Dartmouth. She focuses her teaching and research on the best techniques to prepare students for law school and the bar exam.

Professor Hale has served as vice president of LawTutors, LLC, where she provided individual and group bar exam tutoring, trained other instructors, and created and edited bar preparation materials, including Aspen Publisher’s What Not to Write series, and Blond's Multistate Bar Exam. She has also served as an instructor for Emanuel Bar Review and Themis Bar Review. Before becoming a teacher, she worked in private practice in Massachusetts, specializing in small businesses and workers’ compensation.

I look forward to reading her insights each week.

 

Starting from Scratch

Even the greatest was once a beginner. Don’t be afraid to take that first step.  – Muhammad Ali

While academic support programs are commonly recognized today in legal education, such prevalence has not for long existed. What was once a concept for increasing access to the legal profession, is now a construct mandated by the American Bar Association (“ABA”).  ABA Standard 309 (b) requires law schools to provide academic support designed to afford students a reasonable opportunity to complete its program, graduate, and become members of the legal profession. Compliance with this standard is not measured by bar passage alone. Many schools who, for decades, have not had a distinct program or department devoted to academic support now seek to hire ASP professionals to build a specific program of academic support.

While it is wonderful news to incoming and existing law students that more elite schools are subscribing to academic support as we know it today, it can be equally redoubtable for those new to academic support to direct or build programs for which they have no blueprint. A substantial number of faculty and administrators hired to lead academic support programs, do so without ever having experienced an academic support program themselves. This is so largely because academic support programming is a comparatively new phenomenon that was not prevalent in the legal academy when the Boomers and Gen-Xers, who now predominate deanships and search committees studied law.

Goldie Pritchard, Adjunct Professor and Director of Academic Success at Michigan State University College of Law, is the founding director who built from scratch her school’s law school academic support program. She describes the role and duties of ASP work:

Academic support professionals are problem solvers who are willing to put in the time and effort to help guide students as they navigate their law school learning and bar exam preparation process. We are simultaneously juggling interactions with several different students, each with several different needs, and at a variety of points in their individual progression. We help students manage emotions and address non-academic needs. Doing this type of work is what gets us up in the morning and keeps us going.

Those of us who’ve made a career of our calling understand Pritchard’s words all too well. If you are tasked with creating ground level academic support programming, you can take comfort in knowing that there is a myriad of experienced human resources to turn to for guidance and example. There is not one member of the ASP community that I would hesitate to call upon for help or suggestions. To those who are newly minted program directors without the benefit of in-school predecessors, you can afford to be confidently assertive. Your law school has selected you to create programming because of great confidence in your capabilities, professional judgment, and career experience. Don't deny yourselves or your students the benefit of your instincts.

Fears and professional hesitancy associated with being first or building from scratch are understandable. Remember that prototype program design is, by definition, imperfect and subject to enhancement and improvement. The first iteration of your program is already a marked improvement over the nonexistent or prior patchy programming promulgated by a cache of volunteer or voluntold faculty and other departmental administrators. My advice to you: don’t hold back your suggestions, input, and well-vetted requests for financial expenditures to support your creative vision to improve academic outcomes for the students and graduates whom your position was implemented to serve.

(Marsha Griggs)

Unsung Heroes

A hero is any person really intent on making this a better place for all people. – Maya Angelou

The other day I emailed a colleague, that I won’t identify by name, seeking advice. The colleague, as expected, responded with very helpful information that I had not before considered. As I gushed my profuse thanks upon my colleague, my inner monologue said, “wow this person knows all the answers, I wish I could be like them!” My thoughts went immediately to a dream-like vision of them on some faraway campus with alphabetized, date-sorted, color-coded files of perfect teaching evaluations; an impeccably clean desktop; an email inbox that has been zeroed out; and a tickler with everything checked off. I fantasized that this person, my ASP hero, was respected and listened to by the faculty at their school and has well-behaved children at home to boot.

A phone call on my office line interrupted my fantasy daydream. It was a different colleague, this time calling me for help. I offered a suggestion to a problem presented, based on my experience. As the caller thankfully responded to me and then offered unsolicited extolment on something I’d published recently, it dawned on me that we are all, at some point, “heroes” to someone else.

I snort-laughed at the thought that someone outside of my building could be imagining me with the perfect office, the perfect classes, and the perfect life. My desk is cluttered, and my children are complex. There is far more in my to-do box, than in my outbox.

The point of my message is not about perceived perfection or praise. It is about our own reluctance to recognize how bad ass we really are. Sure, humility has its purpose, but too often ASPers are the unsung heroes of the law school. I champion my ASP colleagues who are teachers, leaders, and scholars. To all the adjuncts, instructors, lecturers, deans, directors, visitors, professors in residence, professors of practice, teaching professors, clinical professors, professors of academic support, and tenured professors, you may not have set out to be hero to anyone. But with every returned phone call and each answered email, with every listserv question and comment, with each textbook recommendation and syllabus share, you have become a hero to us all.

 (Marsha Griggs)

Congrats Scott Johns on a Top 10 Badge!

Congrats to Scott Johns for being recognized by the Texas Bar Today.  His post Obstacles or Opportunities was recognized as one of the top 10 legal blog posts last week.

Keep up the good work!

SEALS 2019 Recap

I just returned from the 72nd annual conference of the Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS) in lovely Boca Raton, Florida. The SEALS conference provided beneficial programming that included substantive updates, current topics affecting legal education and society at large, and a fabulous series of workshops for new scholars.

Our ASP colleagues were very visible during the conference and their sessions generated much positive feedback. There were so many excellent presentations and panel discussions, my one regret is that I could not attend them all. Rory Bahadur, Michael Barry, Cassie Christopher, Patrick Gould, Zoe Niesel, Raul Ruiz, Wanda Temm, and Laurie Zimet shared strategies for bar prep success. DeShun Harris and Renee Allen provided techniques and interdisciplinary teaching methods to improve classroom performance. Twinette Johnson shared her insights on teaching and writing for resistance. Russell McClain and Rosie Schrier challenged legal educators to foster an environment of inclusion by addressing stereotype threat and exploring mindful awareness techniques. Every session provided valuable takeaways. I wish I could address them all!

This was my first year to attend the SEALS conference and it did not disappoint. If you are planning your conference travel for next year, I encourage you to consider SEALS if your travel budget permits. In addition to the topical workshops and discussion groups, I highly recommend the Faculty Recruitment Initiative for anyone on the job market or at a member school looking to hire. The recruitment initiative is designed for entry level applicants, laterals, visitors, and emeriti. SEALS also offers workshops for both prospective law teachers and newer law teachers. These workshops focus on becoming a good classroom teacher, creating effective courses, assessment methods, and balancing service and scholarship. There is certainly room for new and seasoned ASPers to learn and lead at these sessions.

(Marsha Griggs)

Winter/Spring Learning Curve Edition is Out

DeShun Harris, Kevin Sherill, Sarira Sadeghi, and Nancy Reeves sent out the latest edition of the Learning Curve last week.  The articles look great with topics ranging from teaching 2L remedial courses to helping students practice mindfulness.  We have a great community sharing information.  You can access the current edition of the Learning Curve on SSRN or at the Law School Academic Success Project.  I copied the email from DeShun below for more information on submitting articles.  I hope everyone enjoys the read and thinks about submitting their own article for publication.

"The editors of The Learning Curve are pleased to publish the Winter/Spring 2019 edition which is attached. In this edition, you will find articles related to academic support work generally. We hope you will find these authors’ articles as insightful as we did as editors.

We are currently considering articles for the Summer/Fall 2019 issue, and we want to hear from you! We encourage both new and seasoned ASP professionals to submit their work.

We are publishing a general issue so we are considering all ideas related to academic support. If you have a classroom activity you would like to share, individual counseling techniques, advice for the academic support professional, and any other ideas, we want to hear from you!

Please ensure that your articles are applicable to our wide readership. Principles that apply broadly — i.e., to all teaching or support program environments — are especially welcome. While we always want to be supportive of your work, we discourage articles that focus solely on advertising for an individual school’s program.

Please send your article submission to [email protected] by no later than August 5, 2019. (Please do not send inquiries to the Gmail account, as it is not regularly monitored.) Attach your submission to your message as a Word file. Please do not send a hard-copy manuscript or paste a manuscript into the body of an email message.

Articles should be 500 to 2,000 words in length, with light references, if appropriate. Please include any references in a references list at the end of your manuscript, not in footnotes. (See articles in this issue for examples.)

We look forward to reading your work and learning from you!

-The Editors

 

DeShun Harris (Outgoing Executive Editor) 

Kevin Sherrill, Executive Editor

Sarira Sadeghi, Associate Editor

Nancy Reeves, Technology Editor"

Welcome Marsha Griggs as a Contributing Editor to the Blog

Please welcome Marsha Griggs as a Contributing Editor for the Law School Academic Support Blog.  Marsha will help start your week off by posting on Mondays.

For those of you who have not had the pleasure of meeting Marsha at various ASP workshops, here is some information about her.

Marsha Griggs is currently the Associate Professor of Law and Director of Academic Support and Bar Passage at Washburn School of Law.  She joined Washburn Law in 2017.  Previously, she was the Assistant Dean for Academic Support and Bar Readiness at Texas Southern University's Thurgood Marshall School of Law.  She worked in the area of standardized test and bar examination preparation for more than twenty years.  Before joining Thurgood Marshall, she served on the faculty at Collin College and chaired the Business Administration and Paralegal Studies departments.  Prior to that she practiced civil and commercial litigation. Marsha is a graduate of Northwestern University, received a Masters in Public Policy from the University of Texas, and earned her J.D. from Notre Dame Law School.  She is admitted to practice in Colorado and Texas.

Marsha was inducted into the Texas Jury Verdicts Hall of Fame in 2014 and was selected as a 2016-2017 Administrator of the year by the Thurgood Marshall Student Bar Association. She is an avid college football fan and fosters rescue dogs.  She is a mom to two teenagers and a sweet Pomeranian named Snickers.  She wants to live long enough to see Notre Dame win another national championship title in football.

I look forward to reading Marsha's insights each week.

(Steven Foster)

 

 

Farewell to an Inspiration

Saying goodbye is always difficult.  It becomes especially difficult when the person made an impact on so many people.  Amy Jarmon made that impact, and unfortunately, we say goodbye after her post last Monday and retirement.

If you attended the AASE awards ceremony, you saw the reaction from everyone when Amy was awarded the AASE Inspiration award.  Jamie could barely get words out announcing the award.  The standing ovation that followed was well deserved.  Amy inspired a generation of ASPers with both her insight and her ability to find other unique voices for the blog.  Many people read the blog each day because of how Amy expanded it over the years.  Her impact on our community is immeasurable.

True to form, Amy finished her tenure being recognized by the Texas Bar Today with a top 10 award.  Right after she transitioned to being a contributing editor, she wrote a top 10 post.  Her insight continued to garner awards to the end.

In her last post, Amy said she loved the camaraderie in our community.  She was a huge part of that culture with the help she provided to many of us.  I am sure we will continue in those footsteps.  Congrats to a great career and goodbye to an inspiration to us all.

(Steven Foster)

Strength in Numbers

Today is the first day of the 7th Annual Association of Academic Support Educators [AASE] National Conference.  This year well over 200 law school academic support educators are gathering in Seattle, Washington, to share what we have learned about how to help our students succeed in law school and on the bar examination.  For me, it is an enlightening pleasure every year to swap stories and strategies with my brilliant colleagues.

Today's lead-off plenary session, presented by Michael Barry and Zoe Niesel of St. Mary's University School of Law and Isabel F. Peres of Seattle University School of Law, discussed the use of robust data analysis to create predictive models to help identify and calibrate the guidance provided to specific students in preparation for the bar exam.  Several other sessions on the agenda this week address the need to use specific, articulable information throughout the process of providing academic support: from laying out detailed strategic plans to assessing student development to predicting bar passage rates.  Certainly, like any mature field of study in which reliable and reproducible outcomes are valued, academic success recognizes the importance of definition, measurement, recording, and scrutiny.

Part of me feels there is an irony in this, in that the AASE Conference is also an opportunity to work with and learn from some of the most accomplished veterans in the field, people whose spontaneous intuition often appears to be more perceptive and accurate than a detailed mathematical data analysis.  Not only that, there is also a pervasive insistence throughout the Conference on recognizing the ineluctable humanity of each student -- of seeing every one not just as a set of numbers, but as an unpredictable human with immeasurable potential.  The numbers might tell us that student X has a 64% chance of passing the bar, but we might nevertheless work with X as if we sense he really has a 90% chance -- and in doing so, might even help X move from 64% to 90%.

The reality, of course, is that there is no contradiction.  Experienced and gifted professionals are observant; they work with data they may not even be consciously aware of when they assess a student's strengths and weaknesses.  In that context, rigorous scientific analysis can be just as much about confirming the deep knowledge of the veteran as about uncovering previously unsuspected truths.  It can also be about articulating facts and relationships observed by others through long experience in ways that make those facts and truths easier to explain to those new to the field.

Thus, our annual conferences are a double celebration of strength in numbers, recognizing not only the value of sharing the wisdom and lore of our most experienced professionals in a group setting, but also the importance of capturing and confirming this wisdom through data that can back up our intuition, guide our choices, and persuade skeptical students and colleagues.

[Bill MacDonald]

Strength in Numbers

Today is the first day of the 7th Annual Association of Academic Support Educators [AASE] National Conference.  This year well over 200 law school academic support educators are gathering in Seattle, Washington, to share what we have learned about how to help our students succeed in law school and on the bar examination.  For me, it is an enlightening pleasure every year to swap stories and strategies with my brilliant colleagues.

Today's lead-off plenary session, presented by Michael Barry and Zoe Niesel of St. Mary's University School of Law and Isabel F. Peres of Seattle University School of Law, discussed the use of robust data analysis to create predictive models to help identify and calibrate the guidance provided to specific students in preparation for the bar exam.  Several other sessions on the agenda this week address the need to use specific, articulable information throughout the process of providing academic support: from laying out detailed strategic plans to assessing student development to predicting bar passage rates.  Certainly, like any mature field of study in which reliable and reproducible outcomes are valued, academic success recognizes the importance of definition, measurement, recording, and scrutiny.

Part of me feels there is an irony in this, in that the AASE Conference is also an opportunity to work with and learn from some of the most accomplished veterans in the field, people whose spontaneous intuition often appears to be more perceptive and accurate than a detailed mathematical data analysis.  Not only that, there is also a pervasive insistence throughout the Conference on recognizing the ineluctable humanity of each student -- of seeing every one not just as a set of numbers, but as an unpredictable human with immeasurable potential.  The numbers might tell us that student X has a 64% chance of passing the bar, but we might nevertheless work with X as if we sense he really has a 90% chance -- and in doing so, might even help X move from 64% to 90%.

The reality, of course, is that there is no contradiction.  Experienced and gifted professionals are observant; they work with data they may not even be consciously aware of when they assess a student's strengths and weaknesses.  In that context, rigorous scientific analysis can be just as much about confirming the deep knowledge of the veteran as about uncovering previously unsuspected truths.  It can also be about articulating facts and relationships observed by others through long experience in ways that make those facts and truths easier to explain to those new to the field.

Thus, our annual conferences are a double celebration of strength in numbers, recognizing not only the value of sharing the wisdom and lore of our most experienced professionals in a group setting, but also the importance of capturing and confirming this wisdom through data that can back up our intuition, guide our choices, and persuade skeptical students and colleagues.

[Bill MacDonald]