American Jurist - From WCL
Issue: 9/20/05
Web Access:
http://www.americanjurist.net/media/paper654/news/2005/09/20/FromWcl/A.Welcome.
Message.From.President.Adam.Cohen-983793.shtml
It is my distinct honor and pleasure to welcome you to the 2005-2006 academic term at the American University Washington College of Law. To the Class of 2008 and to our newest transfer students, you have my best wishes for good luck as you embark on this newest endeavor in your lives. To our returning students, I hope you enjoyed a prosperous, yet relaxing summer and are looking forward to the year ahead.
When American Jurist Editor-in-Chief Levi McAllister approached me with the prospect of writing a monthly column in this publication, the answer seemed obvious: of course. A monthly column, I thought, would go a long way towards achieving one of our primary objectives in the year ahead - opening up the avenues of communication within the law school. Communication between the Student Bar Association (SBA) and the greater student body. Communication between the SBA and the Administration.
And while this column won't directly create the forum in which communication between the Administration and the student body at-large will prosper necessarily, it can promote the need for the Administration and the students to both do their parts in ensuring that deans communicate key programs and opportunities to Washington College of Law students, and Washington College of Law students voice their academic needs and desires to the Administration loudly and clearly. In short, writing this column provides me a great opportunity to keep the student body apprised of the SBA's activities and initiatives, and to ensure that students are kept up to date on the state of student affairs at the Washington College of Law.
I am also hopeful that through this column I can report progress on many of our initiatives. My writing here publicly will make our governing body more transparent, and thus more accountable to you, the Washington College of Law student body. And finally, I hope to use this space to highlight some of the great successes that your fellow students are enjoying here at the law school throughout the course of the year.
The Year Ahead
When Vice President Jon Feere and I first campaigned for our positions, we talked about revolutionizing the SBA - transforming it from not only an organization that appropriates funds to student groups, but also as a great synthesizer of student concerns and one that is seen as representative of the Washington College of Law student voice. During our campaign, we talked to numerous organizations and countless students in an effort to find the pulse of student opinion on a wide range of issues. We've molded those opinions into several initiatives that we have already begun to explore with the Washington College of Law Administration.
Improving the Academic Program
Our first efforts in the new year will focus on enhancing our academic program by advocating for - what we believe are - small common-sense adjustments that can go a long way towards ensuring that Washington College of Law students are best positioned to take advantage of the myriad of opportunities its school offers. Because several of these initiatives require faculty approval, beginning next month I will ask members of the SBA to join me in meeting with every faculty member individually to formally advocate for these changes, answer any questions or concerns they may have, and request their support as we push for Dean Grossman and members of the Washington College of Law Administration to adopt these simple, but very important changes.
As members of the student body, I hope you will amplify our voice by also taking the time to speak with your professors and show your support for our initiatives by signing petitions that we will prepare for submission to the Dean's office. Those initiatives include:
- The adoption of section rankings for first-year students as a complement to the class-wide ranking system. This system would provide a more equitable and accurate mechanism for exhibiting students' academic achievement during their first year of legal study. Such a system would more accurately inform prospective employers of how students compare to their immediate peers, and not merely to students held to a different standard by a different set of first-year professors.
- The availability of enrolling in a pass/fail option for up to three (3) courses during one's second and third years to encourage students to take bar-preparatory courses they might not otherwise take out of fear of weaker academic performance. One would expect that by increasing enrollment in such courses as Evidence and Wills, Trusts, and Estates for example, a greater number of students will approach their post-graduation bar preparation with a stronger foundation of knowledge and understanding.
- The extension of the law school's add/drop period to allow students to fully survey courses. Lengthening this period (the current period is only five days) would ensure that students remain enrolled in courses that meet their specific academic needs and have an opportunity to withdraw from courses that do not meet their expectations without penalty. ABA credit requirements preclude a lengthy add period, but there is no reason such a period cannot be extended at least through the weekend to allow students additional time to consider alternate courses. And certainly, more time could be allotted for students to drop courses they find after two weeks are not what they anticipated.
- The development of a course waiting list that allows students with course selection priority to take advantage of their priority number by adding their names into a queue for high demand courses when they become full. In preliminary discussions, the Administration has said that the law school's current course registration software does not accommodate such a capability. We hope to explore with the Administration the financial and technological obstacles to modernizing its software in order to better accommodate student needs and desires.
While these may seem simple, I recognize that there are various considerations that would accompany their implementation (be they technological or otherwise); many of which are attributable to the reason they have not been incorporated into our academic program to date. However, as the elected leader of some 1,500 Washington College of Law students, I would be remiss not to advocate zealously for what the Student Bar Association perceives to be necessary improvements to our current program.
Making these small improvements will also benefit the law school in the long run. Students believing that their institution is doing as much as possible to make their stay a positive one will give back to their law school at a higher rate as alumni. They will also speak of their law school with greater praise and the institution's reputation will continue to be one where its deans and faculty care deeply for their students and place them in the best position for attaining professional success.
Advancing Our Institution on the Local and National Scale through Enhanced Communication
In addition to our academic initiatives, this year - more than any year before - the Student Bar Association will assume a leading role in working with the Administration to advance our institution in the local and national legal community. When Vice President Feere and I campaigned, several students expressed doubt in our promise to renew the SBA's commitment to improving our law school's ranking. Some students have said that this is beyond the SBA's reach. I respectfully disagree.
While there are many factors that enter into the U.S. News and World Report annual ranking calculation, several quantifiable measures are immediately discernible, e.g., the bar passage rate as referenced above could potentially be improved through encouraging students to take more bar courses as part of their formal study. Similarly, the peer assessment score can be improved through a simple change in the typical Washington College of Law student's approach.
At this year's leadership retreat, the presidents of each of the law school's 50-plus student organizations will convene to discuss the year ahead as well as any issues and concerns they may have about student affairs at the Washington College of Law. At that retreat, I will call on the student leaders to not only lead their respective organizations, but also to take note of their role as leaders in our institution more generally, and the responsibility that comes with such a position.
Working together, Vice President Feere and I are confident that we can advance our law school's stature in the legal community. When student leaders do not communicate with their fellow leaders, both organizations and students suffer as a result. Students suffer as they are forced to choose between two events that could complement their in-class education, and organizations suffer because they miss the chance to showcase their organization and the law school in the most positive light to panelists and guests who see only half-filled rooms and who, in turn, may question the level of Washington College of Law students' intellectual curiosity. That curiosity is perhaps one of our greatest assets as aspiring attorneys and leaders of our prospective fields, and we must take steps to ensure that it is satiated at every turn.
The current status quo finds student leaders often scheduling events with little regard for other organizations' scheduling of similar events. Through better coordination among student organizational leaders, we can ensure that organizations with overlapping constituencies will avoid both conflicts in event content and scheduling. Events are also planned far too often without corresponding with the Administration to determine if opportunities exist for organizational events to fit within the context of any of Dean Grossman's initiatives.
This must change and beginning this year, the Student Bar Association will lead that change. On any given day at our law school, Washington College of Law students can find as many as three different panel discussions ranging from international affairs to a preview of the upcoming Supreme Court term. By failing to communicate with other organizations and with the Administration, we waste limited resources and forgo the opportunity to help the Administration help us.
Secondly, when we as student leaders fail to adequately inform the Administration which alumni and guests serve as panel participants, we miss the chance for such Administration offices as Career Services (OCS), Externship Services, and Alumni Development to develop and cultivate relationships that could potentially benefit students for years to come.
To facilitate this communication, beginning this September I will encourage student leaders to consistently use the Washington College of Law electronic scheduling system in accordance with a reporting agreement to which I have agreed in principle with Washington College of Law staff and Administration members. Under that agreement and a modernized electronic scheduling system, the SBA will encourage student leaders to alert the Administration as to who is entering the premises at a given time. And while the Administration will then use such information to our benefit, they have agreed to continue to respect the autonomy that student organizations currently enjoy.
I am confident that by blasting open these avenues of communication, students will benefit, both while we are here at the law school as students and long after we walk out its doors as alumni.
After a successful last year, the year ahead has the potential to be an incredible one. Last year, our U.S. News and World Report ranking leaped nine spots into the top fifty schools in the country. We hosted a nationally televised debate between two Supreme Court justices that received unprecedented attention. The Student Bar Association increased its recognition of student organizations to a total of 52 such groups, which brought you a series of events to complement your in-classroom education and will continue to do so for years to come. And this year's entering class continues to demonstrate that Washington College of Law attracts the best and brightest that our nation has to offer.
And in the year ahead, I promise you there is still more to come.
What Else Your Student Bar Association has Planned?
The Student Bar Association is planning a renovation of the 6th floor student lounge that will provide Washington College of Law students - as well as returning alumni and guests - a much-needed area to converse, relax and escape from the daily rigors of law school life.
We are in the process of constructing a multi-functional website, which we hope will serve as an information hub to serve all of the Washington College of Law student body's needs, including state bar applications and opportunities to participate in events at Washington's other law and professional schools that will further enhance your chances for networking. For the first time, our locker distribution system will be automated and our exam outline bank will be fully functional and available on this site.
We are working with the Administration to improve the marketing and branding of our institution to further raise our national profile and show the whole country what a legal education at the Washington College of Law means.
Behind the leadership of SBA Senator Lucy Wiggins and student leader Laurita Denny, our Mentor-Mentee program will be new and improved, matching up 1L students with 2Ls and 3Ls of similar interests and experiences.
In the next term, we will maintain a higher level of activity within the American Bar Association's local circuit. I have already appointed SBA Senator Katie Smith to serve as our liaison to the ABA and charged her with identifying new educational and professional opportunities within that association for our students.
We will continue to negotiate deals with local vendors to benefit Washington College of Law students, such as our week-long free coffee break that we brokered with Starbucks last May.
I am hopeful that the Student Bar Association will launch a community service program in the coming term to promote the need for our students to take some time away from our studies to give back to the Washington, D.C. community. And on top of all that, you have my commitment that your Student Bar Association will continue to represent all of your concerns, no matter how large or small. This is your Student Bar Association. I speak for Vice President Feere and all of your SBA Senators when I say that we have pursued our respective positions because we wanted to leave our mark on this institution. We believe that with the high caliber of its students, innumerable available resources, stellar faculty, and prime Washington, D.C. location, there is every reason that American University's Washington College of Law should be considered among the nation's premier law schools. We look forward to working with the Administration in helping to lead it to that upper echelon, and I, in particular, look forward to having the opportunity to report to you many successes on these and other initiatives in the year ahead.
Until then, on behalf of the Student Bar Association, I offer you my best wishes for luck and enjoyment as you commence the new term.
Sincerely,
Adam J. Cohen
President, Student Bar Association
