Law School Academic Support Blog

Best Practitioners

Greetings from Santa Clara, California, and 10th Annual AASE conference! The sun is shining, and it is amazing to see everyone-the people I have missed in our pandemic years as well as people I had not met in person before today (like the amazing editor of this blog, Steven Foster!)

Here are the things I've learned so far (today was the day for "newbies" to learn the ins and outs of Academic Support):

1. There are palm trees here-but they are not indigenous to this area. But they are so pretty swaying in the wind. I know they'd not survive a New England winter, but I wouldn't mind giving a try....
2. ASP People are the best people-actually, I already knew that, but proof of this fact was undeniable today. We are the kindest, most generous, and collegial academics out there. And if you argue with me about that, I'll most likely ask you for your sources and then have you frame a counterargument because that is what we do, but I won't be thrilled about it.
3. Although I am far from a newbie, I was bolstered by listening to the most respected folks I know tell me what their process is, and even more exciting: it is my process too!!! Which is not to say I didn't learn amazing new things, but I am so happy I am engaging in best practices. Phew!
4. We are doing world class scholarship and lifting each other up with it. This is wonderful!!
5. I cannot wait to see what else (and who else!) I will encounter tomorrow.

I am looking forward to spending more time learning from, as well as hanging and laughing with the amazing community. We value each other when we aren't universally valued in other realms. we are family.

(Liz Stillman)

 

Double Digits!!

Happy Monday! Our conference begins in about a week, and it is a big one (double digits!). Please see the note below from Afton Cavanaugh about a cool project that we are undertaking to commemorate our 10th Anniversary. We need your input-having a national organization is an important step towards our professional goals, so we should celebrate its longevity and our dreams for the future together.

My personal countdown of school lunches left to prepare (ever, since my youngest is graduating in a few short weeks) is a 9 to go. More on that next week.

(Liz Stillman)

Hi Everyone -

I am working on putting together a short slideshow for the AASE Business Meeting to commemorate 10 years of AASE. I have pictures to add to the slideshow, but I would love to add quotes and short video snippets of no more than 10-20 seconds that answer any of the following questions:

• In one sentence, what has AASE meant to you?
• What word or phrase would you use to describe the AASE community?
• In 1-2 sentences, tell us about something you learned from a past AASE conference that you have used in your role?
• In 1-2 sentences, tell us how a member of AASE helped you.

Please address only one question per video. You may upload multiple videos though. These videos do not need to be fancy, the only thing you should ensure is that you record in a well-lit area. Upload your video to this folder: AASE Memories. 

You can also answer one or more of these questions on the word document located here if you prefer not to create a video: Quotes.docx. 

You may also email me, but videos are often too big to send via email. If you record via Zoom and make the file downloadable, you can email me the Zoom recording link. I won't be able to use everything I receive, but we can add everything with the conference materials so that you can see what anyone that shared had to say. 

Best,

Afton Cavanaugh
Assistant Dean of Law Success 

Service Professor in Law

St. Mary’s University School of Law
                                                                      

Ghosted

­This past semester I’ve been lucky that my classes don’t actually begin until noon at the earliest. I haven’t had this schedule since I was a second-semester senior in college with very few credits left to finish. But, as a result of this scheduling bonanza, I have been able to set up one on one meetings with 1L students before their classes begin in the morning. This is a both a good and bad thing. I have had one student who prefers only in-person meetings on Mondays when I may not start classes until 12:30 p.m., but my last class ends at 8:00 p.m. That student’s classes began at 9:30 a.m., so that makes a very long day for me. And this student didn’t always show up or communicate that they would be absent from our early meetings either before, during, or after our scheduled time.  I would get into my office by 8;45 a.m. at the latest to be there and ready to meet and would usually end up getting some coffee when they didn’t show. I left a note on my door when I did that in case they were running late.

After two straight weeks of this non-communication or attendance, I was, understandably (I think) a bit pissed. I assumed I was being ghosted by a student who decided that Academic Support just wasn’t something they needed. I felt disrespected and devalued because my time was clearly not worth anything to them.

But then I remembered that when this student did come to meet with me, they were fragile. They had recently left the military and had some mental health issues-and above all, the military background combined with coming from the South meant that they were unbelievably polite when they sat across from me in my office. They used so many ma’ams that it made me feel old and I asked them (jokingly) to stop to which they replied, “my apologies ma’am.” We both laughed.

I also realized that this student was not someone who would ghost me, or anyone else, if they were okay, which I now doubted they were. It was a good reminder that a student can get lost. They can get lost in big classes, they can get lost in a big building, and they can get lost socially when other students are also stressed and hurried. Instead of being someone this student disrespected, I was someone this student had, in a way, trusted to see their absence and go looking for them.

I sent an email to the student expressing my concern at their absence without judgment or hints of being pissed. I got no answer. I took this information to our Dean of Students and asked her to check in. I was the only one who asked.

Sometimes I need to look for the red-flags and not just see the red.

(Liz Stillman)

Survey reminder no. 3,564,722

Last week, we sent out another email with the individual and institutional survey links to all AASE members. If you didn't receive it, please email me at: [email protected] and I'll get it to you!

The data that we amass as a result of this survey will help our profession know a number of things:

1. Who we are: who are the ASP professionals in our nation's law schools
2. What we do: so, so much, but more specifically we will have information on what classes we teach, workshops we offer, bar prep (during and after law school), orientation programs...really everything we offer to our students.
3. How we are valued, classified, and compensated. This cannot change if we do not know the baseline.
4. How we spend our time in these roles, doing all this work.

 As promised (threatened?), here is a limerick for the occasion:

There once was a survey from AASE     

That didn’t take up all that much space

It asked for the info we need

To help us succeed

In making our tenure track case!

The deadline to answer (APRIL 14TH!!!) is TOMORROW!!!.

Please do not make me resort to sonnets.

(Liz Stillman)

BOLO

Please be on the lookout for the 2023 AASE surveys later this week. We plan to launch the individual and institutional surveys on Wednesday and have them remain open until April 14^th.  We are looking to collect data on who we are, who we serve, our status in the academic hierarchy, and what we do both inside and outside the ASP/Bar Prep paradigms. We will be presenting our findings at the AASE 10^th Anniversary Conference in May.

Please, everyone, fill out your individual survey when you receive it!  It is entirely anonymous. If you are a program director, you get to fill out two surveys (yay!): one for yourself and one for your school.

Our quest for equity begins with the collection of data. We are valuable members of every law school’s faculty team, and while it seems unsavory (and sometimes outright unfair) to have to prove ourselves to get the respect (and salary) we deserve, we must. More participation gives our data more credibility for use later on.

Be counted and seen!

(Liz Stillman)

Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough

It is that time of year when ASP folks are inundated with students who have had an epiphany about their study habits -- usually brought on by grades that were less than stellar. It is also the time of year when students with grades that our law school is concerned about are told to come visit ASP. These students all have a few Cs and have been told that this GPA might not be good enough to continue after the first year. They are frightened, chastened, and often need the tissues and the chocolate I've stocked for this season. I have a general plan for working with these students-almost a template: go over the bad exams, let's see where the deficiencies are (not phrased that way!), and let's get started with building the skills to avoid them for the next set of exams. If the issue is output (lack of IRAC, multiple choice questions that were confusing, etc., time), I get them started on practice questions ASAP. If it is input (didn't outline, didn't study efficiently, missing classes, other distractions), I get them started on building better habits and practice. If it was a mental health issue, or some outside trauma, I ask if they are in a better place, make sure that they are getting help, and then send them to practice (but very gently). I'm sure you do something very similar. This is the bread and butter of ASP. Time-proven technology that is individualized for each student.

But (you knew there would be a but), what do you do with the students who come to you with very good grades? Recently, before I even got a chance to email the 1Ls who will be notified that they should be seeing me, another first year student asked to meet with me to discuss improving their grades. Their grades were: A, A-, A-, and the dreaded B+. I had some good advice about improving their social life--i.e., don't complain to anyone else about these grades--that I kept to myself. I also did not want to dismiss the student with a "those are great grades, whatever you are doing, keep doing it." Although, I will admit this was my first thought along with, "do you realize that there are students here who would kill for those grades????" All I could think of was that Michael Jackson song, "[k]eep on, with the force, don't stop. Don't stop 'til you get enough¹." Sigh.

Yet, I would never turn away a student who asked for help-even if my knee jerk reaction was that they did not need it. So, I followed the protocol-I told them to go talk to the professors and ask what was good, what might have been better on the exams,  and then to come back to me so we can start working on those things. I warned them that the professors might be seeing students with lower grades first so that they would need some patience.  I'm guessing I'll see them again by late February-hopefully.

In a way, I respect this student's drive, and in another way, I am a little concerned about it as well. So rather than act as a surly gatekeeper to the ASP resources in this situation, I thought it might be a good idea to keep an eye on this student to remind them every now and then that the goal is learning. I fully understand that if their grades are worse in the spring, I might be considered the reason. 

Academic support is more than academic. We all know it, so while this student may not need academic help, they do seem to need support. So, if I am their personal Stuart Smalley² who helps them see that they are good enough, smart enough, and doggone it, they belong in law school, maybe that will be enough.

(Liz Stillman)

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yURRmWtbTbo
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Smalley#:~:text=%22I'm%20good%20enough%2C,%2Ding%20all%20over%20yourself.%22

Mark Your Calendar - ASP Presentations January 2023 at AALS Conference

The New England Consortium of Academic Support Professionals Request for Proposals

NECASP IS HAVING THEIR ANNUAL ONE DAY CONFERENCE  (VIA ZOOM) ON DECEMBER 9TH, 2022. Below is their request for proposals:

RFP Deadline Extended to November 8

Request for Proposals: Presentations and Scholarly “Works in Progress” New England Consortium of Academic Support Professionals (NECASP) Conference Friday, December 9, 2022, 10am-3pm ET via Zoom Hosted by the Suffolk University Law School (Zoom link to follow)

NECASP will be holding its annual one-day conference online this December. Our topic this year is “Strengthening Our Core: Attaining Equity for Academic Support and Bar Professionals.” We will gather online to share and explore ideas with ASP colleagues on issues surrounding the attempts towards attaining parity in status in academia for ASP and Bar Professionals.

We welcome a broad range of proposals –from presenters in the New England Region and beyond –and at various stages of completion –from idea to fruition. Please note that we may ask you to co-present with other ASP colleagues depending on the number of proposals selected.

If you wish to present, the proposal process is as follows:

1. Submit your proposal by 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, November 8, 2022, via email to Philip Kaplan at [email protected]
2. Proposals may be submitted as a Word document or as a PDF 3. Proposals must include the following:    

            a. Name and title of presenter

            b. Law School

            c. Address, email address, and telephone number for presenter

            d. Title

            e. If a scholarly work in progress, an abstract no more than 500 words

            f. Media or computer presentation needs

4. As noted above, proposals are due on November 8, 2022. The NECASP Board will review the proposals and reply to each by November 17, 2022.

If you have any questions about your proposal, please do not hesitate to contact one of us, and we look forward to seeing you at our conference!

2022-23 NECASP Board Members:

Chair: Phil Kaplan, Associate Professor of Academic Support Suffolk University, [email protected]

Vice-Chair: Brittany Raposa, Associate Director & Professor of Bar Support Roger Williams School of Law, [email protected]

Treasurer: Danielle Kocal, Director of Academic Success The Elizabeth Haub School of Law / Pace University, [email protected]

Secretary: Erica Sylvia, Assistant Director of Bar Success & Adjunct Professor of Law University of Massachusetts School of Law, [email protected]

(Liz Stillman)

An Illusion

Did you know that the collective noun for a group of magicians is an “illusion?”[1] I believe that Academic Support Professionals are the magicians of law school academics, not because we engage in sorcery, but because we do so much hard work behind the scenes that it seems like things just happen.

Last week, I was lucky to be able to share the tricks of the trade (with the best community of colleagues ever!) at the 9^th Annual AASE Conference at the lovely St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas and on Zoom!  I already knew that ASP folks are the hardest-working, kindest, and most generous people. I was also aware that we are supreme innovators. In short, the brain power in the sessions at our conference could have provided enough energy for the entire state of Texas.[2] And it would have been a clean, renewable source of power!

It was amazing to be in the company of people who truly understand the work—and the flip side of doing so much important work often without having job security or recognition. I know that I am extremely fortunate that my law school is supportive and offers long-term contracts with options for more security,[3] as well as funding for scholarship and conferences. Yet, academic support and bar prep are often seen as—oh wait, actually, we are often not seen at all…

At a faculty meeting last week, after what I consider a big win that added a DEI course graduation requirement,[4] we moved on to an agenda item that tangentially dealt with tenure policy. During this discussion, a tenured, doctrinal faculty member referred to people who had our (ASP and other non-tenure track) faculty status as “faculty with a small f.” As in, essentially, lower case “f” faculty should very clearly not be allowed to vote on tenure policy changes. Yes, I had a big F reaction to that.[5] That was more than just rain on my parade, it was a full-on blizzard: cold and windy. Following my glorious moment in the sun, I was returned to my cubby crumpled and dirty like a kindergartener’s lunchbox after recess.

It is moments like this that make a national conference of all the law school thaumaturges[6] even more imperative for the survival of our profession. We need to work together to collectively ask that the curtain be pulled back so that our doctrinal colleagues[7] can see the work that is often going on out of their sight. There is no magic in what we do, just a lot of hard work that should be transparently visible.

A huge thank you to Afton Cavanaugh and the team at St. Mary’s for solving the huge logistical puzzle that this hybrid conference must have presented!! It was glorious and I am truly enriched by the endless magnificence of this community. I am already looking forward to next year’s 10^th annual AASE conference at Santa Clara Law.[8]

And finally, did you know that the collective noun for a group of doctrinal professors is known as a “pomposity?[9]” 

(Liz Stillman)

 

[1] http://www.collectivenouns.biz/list-of-collective-nouns/collective-nouns-people/

[2] Texas is huge! I knew it was big before, but I really had not understood it until I was there.

[3] A presumptively renewable contract-but not tenure.

[4] I was the leader on this effort, and I am crazy excited that it really happened!

[5] Silently-but I am originally from the Bronx. I’ll just leave it at that.

[6] https://www.dictionary.com/browse/thaumaturge (I had a little fun with google on this…)

[7] Those who don’t already know-there are always going to be allies in every school!!

[8] May 23-25, 2023-save the dates!

[9] http://www.collectivenouns.biz/list-of-collective-nouns/collective-nouns-people/

Rebuttable Presumptions

When I was in high school, and college and law school, I would tell my parents when I was nervous about exams like SATs, midterms, finals... And they would always answer, “you’ll be fine.” I’m not complaining about the faith they had in me, but even after I explained the reason for my extra concern, the answer remained the same. I was dismissed. It didn’t help me feel better in any way and certainly didn’t help me prepare for what was ahead.

Grades were released last week at my law school, and it has been…a lot. I can hear a lot of you nodding in agreement right now. In between extremely interesting AALS sessions, I spent hours speaking with students towards the end of the week. And like most of you, I met with students at all positions on the grade spectrum from, “I don’t know how I got an A-“ to “Am I going to get dismissed?”

Our list-serv has also been full of amazing emails and messages we [1]send students to get them through this time-all starting with the basic idea that “your grades do not define you.” I wholeheartedly agree that students are more than their grades and that their grades do not define them. Collectively, in the next few weeks, we will help students make study plans, assure them that they have more exam experience going forward, and remind them that we are here to help. We will give advice to talk to professors about exam performance, diagnose the issues or types of questions that plagued their exam, and offer practice materials. We will take action.

Yet, there is an elephant in the room: how can I tell students that they are not their grades and at the same time fail to acknowledge the reality that until they have some legal work experience, they may, in fact, be defined by their grades. I am telling them to transcend the grades at the same time I am helping them make plans to get better ones. They know, and they know that I know, that potential employers do care about class rank even I don’t agree with that as a bright line rule for granting interviews (and trust me, “don’t agree” is an extremely diluted way to express how I feel about that)[2]. I worry that I am being dismissive if I say it shouldn’t matter-or even worse-misleading some students to blame circumstances (or people) they cannot control for the grades they received. I absolutely know that some students are laid low by circumstances outside of their control (I had a student whose house burned down last year), but frequently students need to own (or adversely possess) the bad grades to make positive changes.

I think some of the hardest work I have done these past few days (and I assure you, my dance card is full today as well) is speaking to students who need to plead their case to a committee to be allowed to stay in law school (after one seemingly catastrophic semester). There is, per our academic rules, a presumption of dismissal (albeit rebuttable). We advise our students to share all the distractions, traumas, and circumstances that led to this situation. No doubt, this pandemic will be the underlying cause of trauma and academic distress long after we box up our masks and hope they get moldy in the basement from non-use.  More importantly, students need to tell the committee about the plans they have made to deal with these issues. I remind them to tell the committee that they are taking control over what is in their power to control and talk about their plans to ask for help when what is uncontrollable becomes too much. I assure them that asking for, and receiving, help is a sign of maturity and resilience-not weakness. And we should not forget that the next time these students take an exam, they will have an extra layer of stress added because they need to do better and are still frightened by how things went last time.

I will definitely tell students that things are going to be okay (and more often than not, they will be)-but it cannot be the only thing I tell them. I know students need to hear those words in my voice, but I also need to be certain that they will benefit from hearing it more than I will.

(Liz Stillman)

 

[1] Thank you to Melissa Hale, Susan Landrum, and Kirsha Trychta!

[2] I don’t even agree with ranking them, but that will be another post.

Another Wonderful NECASP Conference!

Last Friday’s NECASP Conference on Fostering and Maintaining Inclusive Communities was amazing. It was well organized and carefully curated. I left with some amazing ideas of how I can make my ASP welcome mat larger and make students who cross that threshold feel that we are a caring community. Community=success! A special thank you to the  NECASP executive team: Amy Vaughan-Thomas, Brittany Raposa, Phil Kaplan and Danielle Kocal for a wonderful conference. I have often said, and I stand by it, that the ASP community is the kindest community in law school academics: to our students, our schools, and to each other.  The sheer talent and intellect of my colleagues is breathtaking. 

This morning I walked my dog, Leo, super early because we were escorting my son to before school physical therapy (he hurt his arm when he and his bicycle encountered a curb back in the summer and wrestling practice made it hurt more). My husband is also away on business in (what looks like heavenly) Portugal and he had previously been doing this walk. I will add that I also spent the night with this dog who would not go downstairs, takes up as much space as a human (he weighs 40 pounds, so that was surprising), and doesn’t smell as wonderful as you would hope. The ultimate chutzpah was when he barked at me to pick him up and put him on the bed because he is too short. And judging from the sentence before that, you can imagine how much resistance he got from me, and besides, the cats were unwilling to help. In any event, there I was: tired, cold, and entirely not in Lisbon when Leo and I saw this:

 

Leo and I continued on our walk under this cotton candy sky until we were almost home. As we passed the post office, we saw this bit of pink sharpied advice:

There is no greater ASP hook here except maybe we all need to be reminded to look around and make connections as we make our way through this season of grading and early darkness.

(Liz Stillman)

ASP Exciting Works in Progress

This weekend, I attended the Central States Law Schools Association Scholarship Conference and ASP was well-represented. each speaker gave a talk highlighting their current works and sought feedback from the audience of faculty members. Here is just a sampling of the ASP presentations:

Cassie Christopher, Texas Tech School of Law
A Modern Diploma Privilege: A Path Rather Than a Gate

Michele Cooley, IU McKinney School of Law
But I’m Paying for This!: Student Consumerism and Its Impact on
Academic and Bar Support

Danielle Kocal, Pace Law School
A Professor's Guide to Teaching Gen Z

Blake Klinkner, Washburn School of Law
Is Discovery Becoming More Proportional? A Quantitative Assessment of
Discovery Orders Following the 2015 Proportionality Amendment to
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26

Leila Lawlor, Georgia State College of Law
Comparative Analysis of Graduation and Retention Rates

Chris Payne-Tsoupros
Curricular Tracking as a Denial of the “Free Appropriate Public Education”
Guaranteed to Students with Disabilities under the IDEA

I was delighted to see so many ASPers presenting Works in Progress, and I cannot wait to read and cite your published works! 

(Marsha Griggs)

Zoom Plus

One of the ways we support our students who are on academic warning or probation is to require them to take a second-year course in Legal Analysis and Methods. The title is vague enough to appear on a transcript without stigma to the student and, as a side benefit, it also gives us a lot of latitude in what we teach in the course. In my section of Methods, I teach study and exam skills as well as a smidge of legal writing, a dash of argumentation, and a bissel[1] of statutory construction/interpretation.  I also conference with students one-on-one towards the beginning of the semester to check in on an ungraded “getting to know you” assignment and to try to understand how they got stuck, I mean were fortunate enough to enroll, in this class.

I had a set “script” for these conferences. At the beginning of each conference, we discussed the ungraded assignment (there is written feedback for everyone as well). I thanked each student for doing a great job in our simulated legislature class last week (seriously, the Massachusetts legislature could learn from them).  Then, I asked about the other classes they are taking to see where there might be stress points.

Finally, I ask about the elephant in the room, “How do you find yourself on Academic Warning/Probation?” I intentionally use the passive voice. If a student says they had some “personal problems,” I do not ask for details, I just ask if the issues are resolved (or resolving), and if our Dean of Students’ office is aware of them just in case they need some higher power intervention. If a student says they had issues on exams, I make a note of the type of exam it was for future classes on exam skills. Now granted, I knew some of the students coming into these conferences because we met regularly last year. Other than now knowing how tall they really are and confirming that they do indeed have legs, I didn’t need to hear how they got here, but I did need to know how they were doing now.

This year, like all years, I take notes of these meetings. As I flipped through the legal pad for these conferences after meeting with my 22 students, I saw one word show up at the end of my notetaking for every single student, “Zoom.” This was the always part of the answer to how they found themselves in academic trouble.

Zoom or remote learning wasn’t the whole problem for most students: it was Zoom plus. Students told me that last year was not academically successful because of Zoom plus: ADD, ADHD, anxiety, dyslexia, having COVID, having a family member with COVID, having a chaotic living situation, having a bad internet connection, and so on. But remote learning was, as one student put it, “at least 30-40% of the issue.” Everyone in the remote learning situation-those of us teaching and the students learning- were all trying our best. The bottom line is that remote learning does not work for everyone. These students were concerned that when they take the bar, they will not have learned enough in their first-year classes to get them into a passing range. They felt that they were building their law school houses on weak foundations. This is a valid concern. Going through two (or three for evening students) more years of law school feeling like you are perpetually trying to overcome a deficit will also take a toll on confidence.

I am not saying that remote learning is universally negative either. I had students last year that thrived in a remote learning environment, as well as students who were very nervous about returning in-person because of the pandemic.  Remote learning allows broader access for students; I think that is the promise of remote learning going forward.  A student can, for example, attend a law school in a place they cannot afford to move to (like Boston) or attend school when health or family issues might otherwise prove an insurmountable barrier. And this is not even close to a complete list of pluses.

Yet, the students who preferred remote learning are just simply not the students I am seeing in academic distress right now. I am not asserting that my 22 student class is a representative sample of all law students but they are mine to teach and I need to know where things fell apart for them before they came to me. The current in-person situation has pluses and minuses as well. Students report that are much happier to be back in-person--but also stuck in a position of navigating the 2L curriculum with a 1L understanding of law school culture. Some of them have spent less time in the building than the 1L students who came to school before classes started for orientation-- a few more cracks in the foundation that will need filling. One student thought that being called an upperclassman was laughable because they felt they had very little to offer the incoming class in terms of wisdom and “the ways” of law school. And yet, they hoped that the expertise they did have was, and would continue to be, obsolete. I hope so too.

As academic support folks, we know there have always been (and will most likely be) students who are in academic distress. Some have had family issues, relationship issues, a failure to understand the time investment etc., but it seems that today’s students have all of these troubles plus Zoom.

(Liz Stillman)

 

[1] Bissel means just a little bit in Yiddish, https://www.dailywritingtips.com/the-yiddish-handbook-40-words-you-should-know/

Teaching Law is a Social Profession

As we near the end of this first full semester under the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic, my colleagues and I are developing a clearer and broader picture of the sometimes unanticipated consequences of a shift towards distance learning.  The biggest surprise for me has been the magnitude of the cumulative loss of the daily presence of my fellow teachers and administrators. 

Halfway through spring semester last year, the State of New York ordered all SUNY schools, including the University at Buffalo School of Law, to move entirely to remote teaching.  This was a shock and a strain for students and teachers alike, but we quickly figured out how to make it work reasonably well and get through the end of the school year.  If it was a little rough and wearying, it seemed that everyone understood that we were all doing the best we could under exigent circumstances.  For me and my graduating students, the stress did not let up over the summer, as the twice-delayed and newly remote NY bar exam was a source of unpredictability and anxiety all the way through to October.  But at least, it seemed, my colleagues and I would be able to take what we had learned from all of this and apply it to plan and execute a robust, well-constructed hybrid program for the fall -- one that would allow a limited number of smaller in-person classes while taking advantage of the best practices we had developed for teaching other classes online.  We provided rich pre-orientation and orientation programs for our incoming 1L students.  Our school's experiential program directors worked tirelessly to adapt to the new conditions so that upper class students could continue to receive the benefits of clinical practice.  And those of us in student support made extra effort to reach out and make ourselves available to students scattered throughout the virtual ether.  It seemed to me -- and, I think, rightly -- that we, like many law schools, had recognized, prioritized, and attended to our students' novel needs.

What I did not realize until recently that I had overlooked was the value of simply being in the building every day with other professors and administrators.  It seemed at first just a slightly lonely little inconvenience, having to work from home most days, and seeing maybe one or two people in the hallways on the days I did go in.  After all, we still had regular online meetings of various staff groups and committees, and emails and phone calls were still happening, so it was not as though we did not see each other or even basically know what each of us was up to.  And being busier than usual with student queries and online meetings, one might have thought it was a blessing not to have to commute in every day and to spend precious time walking from one end of the building to the other, bumping into people and engaging in chit-chat along the way.

But in these last couple of weeks, I have come to realize what has been reduced because of the lack of interaction with my colleagues: sharing, synergy, and sensibility.  I think we (or, who knows, maybe it's just me) greatly underestimated how much gets communicated when you see people two or three times a week, spontaneously ask for opinions or bat ideas around, notice which students they are meeting with, or ask a quick question that would probably take twenty minutes to write adequately in an email.  And suddenly we're only a few weeks from finals, and I discover that a student who has been working with me on one specific issue is actually contending with a related issue in a different class.  In a Zoom meeting, one doctrinal professor brings up a pervasive issue among her 1L students, and several others realize they've been dealing with the same problem.  I'm accidentally left off a group email discussion thread and don't find out for three days -- something that could never have happened if we were all in the building, as I would have wandered into the offices of at least one of the group members every day.  

We took so much care to make sure we stayed connected to our students (although they, too, undoubtedly suffer from the dearth of day-to-day contact, with us and with their classmates, in the hallways and before and after class), but, perhaps a bit too stoicly, assumed we'd do fine with more tenuous connections to our colleagues.  But now I see.  We've missed opportunities to share ideas about the law school and information about our students.  It's been harder to improvise together, to pool our strengths to come up with good solutions.  And without the little bits of intelligence we pick up from out colleagues -- the pointillist accretion of points of light that add up to the big picture -- it has become harder to be sensitive to concerns that might affect one student or might affect an entire class.

Here I had been thinking that reaching out too much to my absent colleagues would be only a selfish pestering, a feel-good reprieve from isolation.  But no!  It would really be for the good of my students, and for the whole school.  Starting this week, I have begun setting up regular one-on-one chats with folks, agendaless, just to catch up. Everyone I have proposed this to has welcomed the idea.  And when I make my weekly visit to campus, I'm going to get out of my office and walk every floor of the law school, just to see the few people whose schedules overlap with mine.  Who knows what good, if any, will come out of any particular encounter?  All I know now is that nothing good comes from losing them altogether.

[Bill MacDonald]

Social Distance Learning

Back in the day (2019 and earlier), the first few weeks of law school was a time of intense bonding among classmates.  Shared feelings of excitement, tinged with fear of embarrassment and workload-motivated shock, served to turn strangers into friends in a matter of days.  These friendships would last throughout law school and beyond, and to good effect: Students would always have at least a couple friends in each course from whom they could borrow notes if they missed class due to illness.  Friends, and, okay, sometimes mere acquaintances, would form study groups to share and test ideas.  Soon, 2L and 3L students would introduce themselves, visiting classes or tabling in the hallways for various organizations, broadening the new students' networks of connections to include those with similar interests or backgrounds.  After law school, these connected students would be connected lawyers, and would do what lawyers do in the real world: provide referrals, share expertise, give moral support.  Part of learning to be a lawyer is learning to be part of a legal community.

This year, to varying degrees across the country, the first few weeks of law school have a different texture.  In my school, as in many others, only a portion of classes are being conducted live, in a classroom, and those usually the smaller classes.  Larger classes are being conducted online, where commiseration over an awkward cold-call response is much more difficult, and where, with no one sitting next to you, idle introductory chit-chat is almost as hard.  Representatives from student organizations will probably still visit Zoom classes to introduce themselves and their groups, but with mostly empty hallways, opportunities for getting to know new students in conversation will be less frequent.  

In short: it is going to be harder, and in some ways less natural, to make the kinds and numbers of connections that twelve months ago we all would have taken for granted.  If you have lecture classes that are entirely online, or even asynchronous, it would be all to easy to think of those classes as a kind of enhanced television program, something that grabs your attention but does not feature you in the cast.  Resist this temptation!  Instead, make developing your social network one of your goals this semester: 

• Join and participate in GroupMe and Facebook groups when invited, or form them yourself. 
• Speak up in class, whether orally or in the chat box, and when possible, respond directly to classmates whose views interest you. 
• Ask your professors or student life directors to help connect people interested in forming study groups. 
• Seek out and contact the leaders of student organizations that interest you. 
• Visit your professor's office hours -- real or virtual -- and chat with the other students who attend.  
• When you find other classmates who share something in common with you -- an alma mater, a hometown, a hobby, etc. -- use that as a reason to approach them and perhaps get to know them better.

Although all this will take some additional effort, at a time in which you may already feel you are working harder than you have ever done before, that effort is an excellent investment.  Later in the semester, as you start preparing for final exams, you will find the community you have made will make your work easier.  Your law school experience will be enriched by the support, perspective, and opportunities provided by your network.  And that network, and the skills you will develop in forming relationships within the legal community even under trying circumstances, will benefit you throughout your career.

[Bill MacDonald]

West Coast Consortium of Academic Support Professionals Conference (Virtual)

Southwest Consortium of Academic Support Professionals Recap

This past Thursday and Friday, I was in Lubbock for the SWCASP2020, hosted by Cassie Christopher at Texas Tech. Both Cassie and Steven Foster (our editor and founder of SWCASP!) put on a fantastic event.

The morning started with a presentation by Preyal Shah and Meijken Westenskow from UNT Dallas College of Law, 'It Takes a Village: Establishing Working Relationships with Doctrinal Faculty", and that was followed by Zoe Niesel from St. Mary's University School of Law with "Using Academic Support Techniques in the Doctrinal Classroom: One Civil Procedure Professor’s Experience." 

Both presentations gave attendees wonderful and concrete takeaways to implement at their schools. Preyal and Meijken took us through various models of working with doctrinal faculty, and the pros and cons that come along with each one. Zoe took us through her experience implementing academic support practices in her own civil procedure course. I have a literal pages of ideas from both presentations, and can't wait to implement them all.

This was followed by our keynote speaker, Raul Ruiz, from Florida International, discussing his work on spaced learning and bar passage. 

In the afternoon Antonia Miceli, from Saint Louis University School of Law, presented on "Integrating the Multistate Performance Test from Day One"  It gave us great ways to place the MPT in various settings, and she even had us do an exercise where we thought about where we could use practice MPTs, and potential benefits and challenges. 

The conference ended with Jamie Kleppetsch from DePaul University College of Law, with "2L Curriculum Chasm: Creating the Skill Bridge Between 1L and 3L" In true ASP fashion, she gave us a syllabus and materials to start implementing a 2L course of our very own, along with a checklist of things to think about.

You might sense a theme - academic support conferences leave us all with concrete takeaways and lists of things to implement at our home schools. And to that end, I promise the member's only section of the AASE website will be making its debut soon, with many of these materials!

However, that's not the only takeaway. The best part of any of these conferences are the lunches and dinners, and shared conversations in hotels and shuttles, and walking during breaks. Most of us have a department of 1 or 2, maybe 3 or 4 if we are very lucky. But that sometimes makes it hard to find support for ourselves. These conferences help us build a community, and that community sustains us throughout the year.

Which is why it is breaking my heart that regional conferences in Chicago and NY are being canceled. It's necessary, but I will very much miss the community gathering. 

(Melissa Hale)

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)

Section on Empirical Study of Legal Education Seeking Nominations

If you are looking for an opportunity to serve in the broader academic community and provide more exposure to the contribution of ASP, please consider nominating yourself, or an eligible colleague to the the AALS Section on Empirical Study of Legal Education and the Legal Profession. The Section is requesting nominations for officers and Executive Committee members to serve beginning January 5, 2020 (following the 2020 AALS Annual Meeting).  We hope that members will consider nominating themselves or others to serve in these capacities.
 
The Section on Empirical Study of Legal Education and the Legal Profession promotes communication relating to the empirical study of the full range of questions raised by legal education and the legal profession, encourages professional development and fostering of relevant skills and expertise for those interested in engaging in the empirical study of legal education and the legal profession, and fosters exploration of and exchange of information relating to research developments between distinct communities within legal education. 
 
The Section is committed to building bridges across the many silos found in legal education, and thus has endeavored to encourage candidates for its officers and executive committee drawn from the diverse ranks of podium faculty; clinical and legal writing faculty; academic support professionals; student affairs professionals; admissions professionals, and other interested members of the broader AALS and legal education community. Officers of the Section and members of its executive committee must be current or retired full-time faculty or professional staff of law schools that are members of the AALS.
 
This call for nominations invites nominations for two officer positions (chair-elect and secretary/newsletter editor) and up to five Executive Committee members (each of whom serves for a one-year term). Current members of the Executive Committee (listed below) are eligible for election to officer positions or for re-election to the Executive Committee. The Nominating Committee will be chaired by Chair-Elect, Victor Quintanilla. The Section encourages candidates from diverse backgrounds and parts of the academy to nominate themselves or others for positions as officers or membership in the Section’s executive committee. The executive committee also anticipates forming project-based committees this year that may require chairs and additional members.  

 

To nominate yourself or another, send an email to Chair-Elect Victor D. Quintanilla, ([email protected]) with the subject line “AALS Empirical Section Nomination.” Your nomination should, in one to two paragraphs, explain: (a) your background and interests and their relationship to the work of the section, (b) why you are interested in serving in a leadership position as an officer or member of the executive committee, (c) any other information you think might be relevant to your candidacy. Nominations are due by December 13, 2019.

 

I encourage you to lend your talents and unique perspectives to some of the many AALS Sections, and of course, I  hope to see many of you at our Academic Support Section meeting at AALS next month!

 

(Marsha Griggs)