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University of Wyoming

COLLEGE OF LAW ACADEMIC PLAN 2004-2009

DECEMBER 1, 2003

Executive summary

The primary mission of the College of Law is to provide a high-quality legal education to its students. We also work to serve the legal profession and the public, and to enhance our own professional competence and development, through the production of high-quality legal scholarship. We also provide law-related educational and other services to the Bar, the University community and the general public.

The College of Law contributes to the University’s distinction in several areas identified in Moving Forward III. The College educates core professionals in law, including key policymakers and public servants, as well as practicing attorneys serving the general public. It provides fundamental legal training in the environment/natural resource disciplines and on business and entrepreneurial issues. The College also contributes to the study of Wyoming and Rocky Mountain history and culture via regular courses, and by other means such as symposia and public lectures.

The College of Law’s basic goals, and key action items we are considering to achieve these goals over the next five years, are as follows.

1. Improve the learning environment for law students

· Revamp first year writing program by hiring a director, enhancing coordination of writing pedagogy across the curriculum

· Establish an Academic Success Center (includes assistance to students in academic trouble, writing center, bar exam preparation)

· Establish a plan for assessment of student learning

· Section some large required classes to improve student learning

· Identify student learning goals & review curriculum to improve achievement of those goals

2. Enhance the curriculum

· Improve learning of novice students by adding an Introduction to Law course for first year, first semester

· Promote experiential learning by enhancing clinical and externship programs, and skills offerings

· Promote economic development & entrepreneurship in Wyoming by developing the business curriculum, especially in cooperation with other campus units

· Increase internationalization by expanding course offerings, encouraging study abroad, exploring faculty/student exchanges

3. Increase public service

· Explore the creation of a Rural Law Center as umbrella for public service projects and faculty scholarship

· Enhance faculty scholarship by better coordination, encouraging interdisciplinary efforts and revisiting tenure and promotion policy

· Expand public service opportunities for students and faculty, including pro bono projects, Continuing Legal Education program

4. Improve the use of information technology

· Create a “smart” classroom

· Provide IT support within the College of Law

· Enhance access to library resources through the use of technology

Many of the above goals and action items will require additional revenues. The College of Law is planning to request a tuition increase to support many of the above proposals, including the hiring of a legal writing director, hiring of an information technology staff person, and hiring of additional faculty to enhance the learning environment and improve the curriculum.

MISSION STATEMENT

The primary mission of the College of Law is to provide a high quality legal education to its students. We also work to serve the legal profession and the public, and to enhance our own professional competence and development, through the production of high-quality legal scholarship. We also provide law-related educational and other services to the Bar, the University community and the general public.

OVERALL GOALS

The College of Law identified five basic goals, which have not changed since the 1999-2004 academic plan:

· Enhance the curriculum

· Increase public service

· Enhance the quality and diversity of the student body

· Maintain and build a strong faculty

· Improve the use of information technology

PROGRESS ON ACTION ITEMS – 1999-2004 COLLEGE OF LAW ACADEMIC PLAN

Full Funding of Housel and Rudolph Professorships. This objective has been achieved. Our first Housel/Arnold distinguished professor is Stephen Feldman, a well-respected scholar of constitutional law and jurisprudence, who was hired in Fall of 2002. We also had a Rudolph Distinguished Visiting Professor, Helen Norton, in Fall 2001, and we are hosting another Rudolph Distinguished Visiting Professor, Tony Arnold, in Fall 2003.

Provide First-Year Students with a Small-Class Experience. This is still in progress, and is included in our action items for the 2004-2009 academic plan. In Spring 2004, the current first year class will be divided into two sections for the Civil Procedure I course.

Update and Revise Curriculum. Since our last plan, we have expanded our curriculum to add courses in domestic violence (upgraded from a seminar), employment law, intellectual property, and pretrial practice, and seminars in health law and internet law. We now permit our law students to take and count toward their J.D. degree a limited number of non-law graduate courses offered by other University of Wyoming departments. We also reviewed our first year legal writing program, and the faculty concluded we would benefit from having a full-time legal writing director who would also be a tenure-track faculty member. We have not yet found the resources needed to accomplish this, but a plan to increase revenues that could help in this regard is outlined below. The curriculum committee is currently reviewing the first year substantive curriculum.

New Programs. We have added a Domestic Violence Clinic as a component of the existing Legal Services Program. We also have added a summer session on a limited basis to include non-classroom credit offerings that students take during the summer, e.g., off campus externships, independent study, and clinics.

Strengthen Ties with the State Bar. This objective is ongoing. Members of the law school faculty have participated in the yearly state bar meetings, and are also members of the Wyoming State Bar’s Law School Liaison Committee. The College provides a bimonthly update on law school news for the State Bar’s principal publication, the Wyoming Lawyer, and one of our faculty members writes a bi-monthly column on professional ethics.

Maintain and Enhance Continuing Legal Education and Public Programs. The Law School has offered an array of continuing legal education and public education programs for the past five years, and is reviewing this area.

Increase Library Resources. The law library acquisitions budget has been increased by approximately 21% over the last ten years ($40,000 per year), but this is still a pressing issue in light of ever-increasing costs of library materials.

Multi-Disciplinary Initiatives. An annual Consumer Issues Conference was established as a joint project of the College of Law, College of Agriculture (Department of Family and Consumer Sciences) and the Outreach School. We are planning the fifth conference, set for October 2004. The College of Law continues to host the Maurice Wear School Law Institute annually. One law faculty member serves on the academic advisory committee of the School of Environment and Natural Resources, and another faculty member is teaching a course for the African-American Studies program. We have a law faculty member on the International Studies program advisory committee who also serves as an adjunct faculty member in International Studies. The College is currently exploring greater collaboration with the graduate program in Psychology.

Improve Student Recruitment and Financial Aid/Scholarships. With the addition of an Assistant Dean position, the College has been able to improve student recruitment in several ways (e.g., more recruitment visits in the region, better on-campus coordination with pre-law club and multi-cultural office). We also have worked closely with the University Financial Aid office to provide admitted applicants with information earlier on their total financial aid package. The College of Law scholarship pool (state funds) was increased by 50% due to a collaboration with the Graduate School.

High Quality Faculty. Faculty salaries have improved substantially, and the diversity of the faculty has increased due to new hires, including two persons of color. We have hired one permanent distinguished professor and hosted two one-semester distinguished visiting professors. Private fundraising has yielded significant endowment gifts to support summer research grants.

Improve Technological Infrastructure and Use. We have increased classroom instructional technology with the installation of a digital projector and accompanying locked lectern to store a laptop, vcr, etc. We are currently installing an additional projector with lectern in another classroom as well as improved audio systems. We have participated in at least two compressed video Continuing Legal Education classes that were broadcast statewide, and have offered one online course to students on Internet law. The law school’s technology committee is currently planning to spend additional grant monies on improving instructional technology and electronic networking.

AREAS OF DISTINCTION

The College of Law is uniquely positioned to make great strides in the next five years. Significant change in many areas will require additional financial resources. For the first time in a decade, the College has the opportunity to modify its tuition structure, which could enable the law school to generate significant revenues to enhance its operations on several fronts. With the university’s support of such an initiative, the College will make substantial progress toward achieving each goal. A revenue increase to a level more consistent with other public law schools in the region could, for example, enable the College to expand its curriculum, reduce class sizes, and improve the legal writing program; improve the library collection; increase scholarships to attract and retain the best student body; enhance faculty research support; improve continuing legal education programs and other outreach initiatives; and improve facilities generally. (Action Item 1).

Any significant increase in tuition, of course, must be undertaken thoughtfully and deliberately. While the College’s tuition currently is within the lowest 5% of law schools nationally, we do not want a tuition increase to jeopardize students’ access to a legal education, particularly that of Wyoming residents.

Achievement of the five stated goals will involve careful consideration of all of the institutional issues defined in Moving Forward III. Those issues are set forth in more detail later in this plan, together with specific action items. Each of these issues – the learning environment; assessment of student learning; scholarship and graduate education; diversity, internationalization, and access; structure of the curriculum; faculty positions and new programs; technological infrastructure; outreach, extension, and community service; and enrollment management – impacts the law school significantly and will be the subject of concrete and ongoing planning discussions.

The College of Law can and should play an important role in several areas of distinction identified in Moving Forward III:

· Professions and Issues Critical to the Region. The College of Law has educated leaders for Wyoming and the region for the past 80 years. About two-thirds of the Wyoming State Bar members are graduates of the UW College of Law, including all current members of the Wyoming Supreme Court and most of the other members of the state and federal bench. The current Governor, Secretary of State, and State Treasurer are UW law graduates, as are key policymakers and public servants in communities throughout the state and the region – from state legislators to county commissioners to local school board and city council members. Our citizens will count on the College to educate such leaders for decades into the future, so we must continue to maintain a strong program of legal education.

· Environment and Natural Resources. Moving Forward III recognizes the discipline of law as “fundamental to teaching and research in this area.” The College of Law has had a long and rich tradition of excellence in this area. Our faculty will continue to provide education, leadership, and cutting-edge scholarship in the areas of water resources, environmental law, public lands, oil and gas, mining, and related fields. The College will seek greater connections with the School of Environment and Natural Resources and opportunities to collaborate in academic areas such as ecology. We are also considering a joint JD/ENR masters program.

· History and Culture of Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain Region. The College of Law has played an active role in academic initiatives related to the history and culture of Wyoming and the region. The College has taught courses, for example, in the area of American Indian law and policy, and could expand its energies in this direction. Another example of past support, and future potential, is the Frontier Justice Symposium, which the College co-sponsored with the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. Future symposia could enhance the university’s reputation and involvement in issues relating to Western history and culture.

· Statewide Leadership in Cultural Endeavors, the Arts, and the Humanities. In addition to the Frontier Justice Symposium, the College of Law has collaborated with the Wyoming Council for the Humanities to present “law and literature” and ethics programs throughout the state, and to provide support for the Matthew Shepard Symposium on Social Justice. The College is an active partner with the American Heritage Center’s Alan K. Simpson Institute for Western Politics and Leadership in developing and sponsoring a February 2004 conference on the selection of federal judges. The College looks forward to similar collaborations in the future in an effort to provide statewide leadership in the humanities.

· Life Sciences/Critical Areas of Science and Technology. While the College of Law’s role in these areas has not been extensive, legal issues arise regularly in dealing with such diverse issues as bioethics, ecosystem analysis, and internet behavior. The College could play a significant role in curricular and extracurricular initiatives related to science and technology.

· Economic Development. Recognizing the significance of UW’s roles in economic development and in stimulating entrepreneurship (Moving Forward III, p. 9), the College of Law will consider broadening its teaching and scholarship in business law areas. The College is well positioned by virtue of its legal expertise to explore ways to impact favorably on economic and entrepreneurial matters within the state and nationally. To that end, the College will seek opportunities with other UW units to develop cooperative efforts in this area.

· A Rural Law Center could promote the following areas of distinction identified in Moving Forward III: environment and natural resources, professions and issues critical to the region, and the history and culture of Wyoming and the region. This initiative is discussed below in the section on Faculty Scholarship.

CURRICULUM ISSUES

Curriculum is at the heart of the College of Law. The goals and purposes of the College are achieved largely through its curriculum. To fulfill these ends, academic training necessary to the professional practice of law must be provided to law students. Students must be given the opportunity to learn the law in its substantive, procedural and institutional aspects, and to acquire professional skills and a measure of practical experience. The object of the curriculum is to instill in each student the learning required of beginning professional lawyers in our society.

The present curriculum of the College of Law is sound, the product of decades of experience by a learned faculty. No wholesale revision needs to be undertaken. Improvement must be incremental, in accordance with the changing needs of society and the legal profession, and as permitted within the resources available to the College.

The breadth of the curriculum will remain a concern. It is not possible to offer courses in every conceivable legal subject or specialty. The focus must be on imparting sufficient legal learning and skills to enable students to engage in the successful professional practice of law.

Present Issues

· Skills Training. The Law Faculty are in general agreement that proficiency in the skills necessary for the successful practice of law can and should be enhanced. This includes legal writing and drafting, oral advocacy and communication, negotiation, counseling and interviewing, and law office management. The goal may be accomplished through development of specific skills courses, integration of skills training into existing courses, and enhancement of clinical and externship programs. The first-year legal writing program could be enhanced by appointing a tenure track faculty member to direct and coordinate the program, and provide a specialist and scholar in the pedagogy of legal writing, and to oversee a legal writing center within the law school. College of Law clinics and the externship program provide excellent instrumentalities for learning legal skills. These programs should be reviewed, strengthened and possibly expanded to permit each law student to gain practical experience. (Action Item 3).

· Professionalism. Substantial concern exists within the legal profession over whether the standards and traditions of the profession are in significant decline. Law students need to have a sound understanding of the ethical requirements of the legal profession, as well as comprehension of the history and traditions of the profession and legal etiquette. Training in these areas should be enhanced, principally through integration into existing courses, which should be designed with professionalism components. (Action Item 3).

· Basic Understanding of the Legal System. Entering students lack a sufficient understanding of the legal system to permit them to study law most effectively. First-year student learning would be enhanced if students had a fundamental understanding of the procedures and structure of the legal system, as well as an introduction to legal reasoning. A course in introduction to law and legal reasoning should be developed either as a part of the first-year, first-semester curriculum, or as part of an enhanced orientation for entering students. (Action Item 3).

· Curricular Planning. Faculty must remain responsive to changes in the law and demands upon members of the legal profession by continually modifying the curriculum. Also, as set forth below in the assessment timeline, the faculty will articulate student learning goals and outcomes for the College of Law academic program, and review the curriculum to determine if and how it is contributing to the achievement of the stated goals. Joint efforts and understanding could achieve elimination of duplication, coverage of areas of importance now being neglected, and enhanced opportunities for training for law students. (Action Item 3).

INSTITUTIONAL ISSUES

Diversity

The College’s practice of looking at the “whole applicant,” rather than relying solely on an index number in admissions decisions, has helped foster a diverse student body. However, we seek to increase the enrollment of students who are members of groups currently underrepresented in law school. To do this, the College will:

· Work with relevant UW campus organizations.

· Work with minority recruitment offices at target colleges and universities in the region.

· Enhance scholarships.

Recognizing that satisfied students are among the best recruiters, we also will strive to provide the support that these students sometimes need to thrive in law school.

The College’s small faculty is diverse in many respects (e.g., approximately one-half female, 12% persons of color), and we will continue our policy of recruiting faculty with a wide variety of backgrounds. (Action Item 5).

Access

The College facilitates access to legal education through its low cost (being well within the lowest 5% for law school tuition in the country) and its “whole applicant” admissions policy. We will try to become even more accessible by enhancing the size and number of scholarships we offer.

Physical access to the College for those with disabilities needs to be improved. Working with WIND, we are acquiring a specially designed desk and a computer workstation with voice recognition software, and making necessary changes to the physical environment (e.g., door levers to replace knobs). The planned remodeling of our courtroom will significantly improve access for the disabled.

Technological Infrastructure

A recent federal grant will enable the College to create one state -of–the-art “smart classroom” and to provide videoconferencing capabilities throughout the law school. However, we recognize that we will need to hire at least one full-time technology expert to assist our students and faculty in making the best educational use of this and other existing technologies, and to plan for the adoption of new technologies. (Action Item 2).

Library

In the last ten years, the cost of most legal materials has risen nearly 103% while the Law Library’s budget has increased about 21%. Therefore, the Law Library will, with faculty advice, comprehensively re-examine its collection development policies, to determine how it can provide its users with the information they need in a more cost effective manner. The Law Library is exploring ways to enhance users’ access to information online through the hiring of an Electronic Services Librarian. (Action Item 4).

Community Service

One of the traditional obligations of members of the legal profession is to engage in uncompensated public service. Thus, as the College of Law prepares future members of this profession for the state, the region, and the nation, it has a responsibility to foster commitment to public service.

To accomplish this goal the College of Law will consider the following:

· Continue to support the efforts of the student group Wyoming Students for Equal Justice. This group seeks to connect students with available pro bono service opportunities, promote educational forums on access to justice issues, and promote public service as a lifelong aspect of lawyers’ professional commitments. The law school will continue the current $500 per year commitment for membership in the national Equal Justice Works organization, which promotes pro bono legal service.

· Provide students with information about volunteer opportunities and public interest jobs through the career services office. In addition, funding may be available for placement of students in off-campus public service work; and federal legislation may soon make student loan forgiveness available for individuals who opt to pursue some lower paying public interest jobs. The College will consider developing (through donor funding) its own loan reduction assistance program for graduates.

· College of Law faculty members, as educators and members of the legal profession, should lead by example. Faculty members are committed to continuing their history of service, by providing leadership in their areas of expertise, serving on state and national bar and other law reform committees, and participating in continuing legal education (CLE) programs for the bar and community educational programs on legal issues.

· Participation in a Wyoming legal needs assessment. This project has been ongoing for the past two years. The legal needs assessment aims to determine types of unmet legal needs in the State, where they occur, and what resources are needed to address them. (Action Item 6).

Internationalization

Given the global nature of the economy, lawyers of the future are interested in, and need exposure to, international law and international experiences. With limited faculty and resources, however, these interests and needs must be balanced against the need to provide our students with a solid grounding in American law. As such, increased internationalization is certainly a goal of the law school, but not a top priority. Thus, we have focused on finding ways to increase and/or enhance our students’ international opportunities without requiring substantial commitments of additional resources. (Action Item 8). Among the measures being considered by the College of Law are the following:

· Increasing course offerings. Investigate sharing classes with other law schools in the region via the Internet, compressed video, etc. In this regard, the “smart classroom” may help make such collaboration possible. In addition, the recent increase in the number of credit hours students may take in other departments and apply toward law school graduation credits may help by enabling law students to take additional graduate level courses in the International Studies Program.

· Study-abroad programs. The College of Law facilitates students’ access to information about the availability of study-abroad coursework offered by other accredited law schools. In addition, the College of Law will explore opportunities for co-sponsoring a study abroad program with another American Bar Association (ABA)-accredited law school. This would provide students and faculty with an opportunity for an international experience without the College of Law bearing all associated administrative costs.

· Faculty and student exchanges. Saratov, Lithuania, and other foreign law schools have expressed interest in faculty and/or student exchanges with the College of Law. In addition, recent changes to ABA rules regarding foreign study may make it easier to attract foreign students and to enable College of Law students to obtain credit for study abroad. The College of Law can do more to make students aware of such opportunities.

· Foreign academics as visiting faculty. For a modest stipend, the College of Law may be able to host as visiting faculty highly qualified foreign lawyers who have recently completed LL.M. programs at prestigious American law schools. In addition, given the differences between the academic calendars abroad and in the United States, we may be able to hire foreign academics to teach courses in a compressed time period, thereby providing our students with enriching opportunities, while reducing our expense.

LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

Over the coming five years, the College of Law will improve the learning environment for students and faculty alike through a focus on the Seven Principles for Good Practice in Legal Education. This will include self-study, experimentation, reflection, and change.

The first of the seven principles, and our first goal, will be to encourage greater levels of student-faculty contact. Major objectives of this goal are an early increase in students’ tolerance for ambiguity, a quality critical to receiving a sound legal education, and the bridging of cultural gaps that separate students whose family backgrounds reflect less formal education and more limited contact with professionals in their pre-law school lives. We already recognize some of the institutional barriers that must be overcome to achieve this goal, including large class sizes, particularly in the first year. Based on pedagogical research suggesting the benefits of small class instruction, we will seek means to reduce the class-size in some required courses from the present level of 75-80 to a maximum of 40.

Our second goal will be to improve our learning environment by encouraging greater levels of cooperation among students. One objective of this goal is to provide a learning experience that more accurately reflects the world in which attorneys work: one where concepts must be explained to clients, colleagues, and courts on a daily basis. Another is to require our students to more fully digest concepts as they study them by having them articulate their understanding to classmates. Action items to further this goal will include experimenting with group work within some courses and encouraging students to develop learning communities.

Third, we will encourage more active learning. Objectives of this goal include having students take responsibility for their own education and incorporating the diverse backgrounds and experiences of students into the educational process. Action items to achieve this goal include faculty workshops held with the support of the ECTL to identify and explore active learning techniques suitable to doctrinal courses and large sections, as well as less formal, but regular, gatherings of our faculty to exchange ideas and experiences.

Our fourth goal will be to enhance students’ opportunities to perform, both orally and in writing, and to receive prompt feedback. The objective of this goal is to allow students to assess their understanding of expectations and the depth of their knowledge and skills throughout each course, and to adjust their focus as necessary to master the material. Research on adult education has revealed the importance of formative assessments to ensure and promote progress toward learning goals. Smaller class sizes, particularly in the large first year required courses, make it possible to incorporate exercises that provide individualized feedback.

Fifth, we will seek to maximize the learning experience of our students by emphasizing both the quantity and the quality of time invested in student learning by students and faculty. Our objectives here will be to help our students use their time well and to encourage faculty development of improved teaching methods. To assist students, we will explore the establishment of an Academic Success Center in the College of Law, possibly under the guidance of a legal writing director, as an umbrella to bring together such elements as an already-successful retention program, exam-taking assistance, a legal writing center, and bar-exam preparation materials (such as a bank of past exam questions) in a single center. (Action Item 10). We will encourage faculty who wish to dedicate a portion of their scholarship efforts to the expansion of knowledge of legal pedagogy. Also, recognizing the growing numbers of outside commitments that occupy our students, we will seek means to keep students on campus for more hours each week.

Our sixth goal will be to better communicate our high expectations to students. With the objectives of reducing anxiety and enhancing opportunities for success, we will seek to offer students more opportunities to learn what is expected of them and to practice meeting those expectations. Aside from large required courses, we already have many small elective classes that offer excellent opportunities for student-faculty contact. However, reduction in the sizes of some of the remaining large classes and increased student-faculty contact will improve our communication of expectations. We will encourage visiting or guest lecturing in colleagues’ courses more frequently as a means of bettering communication among faculty and modeling for our students the high expectations we have for ourselves as legal professionals.

Finally, we will respect our students’ diverse talents and ways of learning. Our objective is to prepare all of our students, regardless of their backgrounds or individual strengths, to serve their communities as attorneys and leaders. By encouraging more interactive and group work throughout their legal education, we will enhance our students’ opportunities to learn from one another, to showcase individual talents, and to be prepared to join and lead their future communities. As our faculty works together to explore new methods and reflect upon them, we will enhance our understanding of differing learning styles and improve our ability to reach students more effectively.

FACULTY SCHOLARSHIP

Our overall goal in this area is to maintain the high quality of diverse scholarship produced by the faculty, while encouraging and supporting non-tenured faculty in their research projects so that they can become permanent, productive faculty members.

The College seeks to encourage, assist, and reinvigorate faculty engagement in scholarship. Cooperation and communication among the faculty about their scholarly efforts is needed to enhance our collective scholarly output. This could take the form of faculty seminars, workshops, presentations, and simple information sharing. Faculty will pursue various methods for informing colleagues of their teaching, scholarship, and service activities, such as annual reports to the dean, and articles in the alumni newsletter. We will encourage faculty to share works-in-progress with colleagues. Beginning in Fall 2003, the faculty will try out a promising new initiative, in which faculty members will meet on an informal, bi-weekly basis to discuss teaching and scholarship matters. (Action Item 11).

The faculty has an interest in encouraging, and creating opportunities for interdisciplinary research, and also desires to enhance College of Law visibility and contributions to other UW departments and colleges, to Laramie, and to Wyoming. Faculty scholarship could be facilitated and diversified by seeking enhanced interaction between College of Law faculty and other UW faculty, for example:

· collaborative research with the Psychology Department;

· greater involvement in ENR research and programs;

· development of team-taught, inter-departmental, cross-listed courses, such as in the areas of Biosecurity, African-American Studies, and Political Science; and

· participation in UW conferences and symposia, such as Consumer Law conferences, Frontier Justice symposia, etc.

We will examine the desirability and feasibility of establishing a Rural Law Center. (Action Item 7). Potential benefits of a Rural Law Center include:

· opportunities for integrating law faculty scholarship and service endeavors;

· collaboration with other UW faculty, and between law faculty and Wyoming law practitioners; and

· serving unmet legal services or information needs of Wyoming communities.

At the present time, the College has a large contingent of untenured faculty. The College should support its untenured faculty members by more mentoring, and by publicizing, discussing and perhaps amending (especially for clinical faculty) the tenure and promotion policies. The College will also review its current policies regarding research leaves, reduced teaching loads, and teaching schedules to ensure adequate meaningful support for faculty members’ significant research projects. The faculty will revisit some or all of the College of Law policies concerning scholarship, teaching, and service. This would require a review of the current College of Law Policy Statement Dealing with Teaching, Scholarship and Service Components of Tenure & Promotion Determinations (9/15/89). (Action Item 11).

Funding for scholarship-related travel (e.g., attending and presenting at conferences) is necessary to produce quality legal scholarship. There is a potential conflict between university calendars for spring semesters in 2005 and subsequent years and law faculty attendance at the annual Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Convention (held during the first week of January). This is the major annual professional conference for law professors and provides invaluable opportunities for the development of scholarship and teaching. To facilitate faculty attendance at the AALS convention, the faculty will explore, with student input, options for avoiding the calendar conflict.

ASSESSMENT PLAN

This section seeks to answer the question: How do we know if we are accomplishing our goals? Traditionally we have pointed to the following items as evidence:

ABA/AALS accreditation, with its self-study and site visits

In 1999-2000, we were reaccredited, although the team raised some concerns that have since been resolved. Indeed, the College has been accredited since 1923. This process of accreditation by a professional body every seven years certainly provides a valid and positive assessment of the College’s academic program.

Placement statistics showing graduates’ employment

Our graduates show a high level of employment, e.g., 90-97% for the class of 2001. Also, in the long term, our alumni occupy the highest positions of leadership in the state, including the governor, all of the state supreme court justices, the state attorney general, the state treasurer, state secretary of state, many legislators, and judges. This rich tradition of professionalism is also a valid and positive assessment of the College of Law.

Bar exam

Most of our graduates seek jobs in the legal profession. This means they must pass a bar exam. Each state administers its own exam and the overall passage rates vary greatly from state to state. For the July 2002 administration, for example, state pass rates varied from 50% to 93%. According to Dale Whitman, immediate past president of the AALS,

From the viewpoint of national policy, it is very hard to justify the enormous variation in these numbers. Surely they cannot be explained adequately on the basis that lower-quality law schools feed the low pass-rate states, or on the basis that the legal environment in the low pass-rate states is an unusually difficult and challenging one. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the state a law graduate selects has a very strong bearing on the graduate’s probability of successful bar admission. Dale Whitman, Thinking About Bar Admissions, reprinted at http://www.aals.org/pmaug02.

Similar concerns about the bar examination process have come from other respected sources. In a statement released in July 2002, for example, the Society of American Law Teachers stated:

Bar examinations, as currently administered,

· fail to adequately measure professional competence to practice law,

· negatively affect law school curricular development and the law school admission process,

· and are a significant barrier to achieving a more diverse bench and bar.

SALT, Statement on the Bar Exam, as reprinted in 52 J. Legal Ed. 446 (September 2002).

The College appreciates the fact, as noted by Professor Whitman in the above-cited article, that “most boards of bar examiners work diligently, usually with no pay and little thanks, to make the admission process fair and reasonable for our graduating students.” Nonetheless, because of the uncertainty and the debate currently surrounding the system of bar examinations nationwide, we are not satisfied to use bar passage rate as a major assessment of the College of Law’s academic program. However, we wish to become involved in the local and national discussions on the use of bar exams and to be an advocate for our students who must pass such an exam in order to practice in the legal profession.

To address the issue of the bar examination, the following action items will be pursued (Action Item 12):

· The College will work to improve communications between the law faculty and the Wyoming and other state bar examiners, and with the private bar review courses to obtain more information on their policies and approaches, to make appropriate suggestions, and to discuss how the test relates to the successful practice of law.

· The College will review its overall program to determine if adjustments could or should be made in light of bar examination practices. For example, it is possible that we could offer assistance on a limited basis to interested students through an Academic Success Center, such as by providing exam preparation assistance, and by making past bar exam questions available.

· The College will work with a recently formed AALS/ABA Joint Working Group on Legal Education and Bar Admissions, possibly sending a representative from the law school and encouraging the state bar and state supreme court also to send a representative to a national conference on legal education and bar admissions that will be organized by the Joint Working Group in 2004.

Assessment Plan

As a College, we plan to go beyond the traditional assessment approaches discussed above. We will undertake steps to assess student learning using our own statement of specific learning outcomes and developing our own measurements. Assessment of student learning is now a “movement” in undergraduate education, and is required as part of each College’s academic plan. In this respect, the College of Law is at a “planning to plan” stage. And although this is a 2004-09 academic plan, we see no need to wait until 2004 to begin our plan for assessment of student learning. Hence the timeline begins in the current year.

As a product of this academic plan, the College will take the following steps (Action Item 13):

· 2003-04 - By the end of academic year 2003-04, the College will agree on student learning goals/outcomes. This will be done through faculty meetings throughout the year, or possibly at a future faculty retreat. Each year of study may provide distinct stages or levels for the desired learning outcomes.

· 2003-06 - Review curriculum for each year of law school to determine whether and how the courses being taught relate to the student learning goals. This could be done through a process of “curriculum mapping.” The curriculum committee in consultation with the faculty as a whole, would conduct these reviews starting in 2003-04. Curriculum mapping and review could be done one year at a time, meaning that all three years would be completed by mid-2006 calendar year.

· 2004-05 - Establish a law school student learning assessment committee. The committee will recommend measurement tools to determine whether learning outcomes are being met. In addition to the traditional assessment tools of bar passage rates and job placement rates, these could include student surveys at the end of their first, second and third years, a “readiness” test for students planning to represent clients in clinical settings during their third year, and surveys of employers, graduates and others regarding how well prepared our graduates are for practicing law.

· 2005-07 - The assessment committee will collect and analyze data from the recommended assessment tools and, working with the curriculum committee and the faculty as a whole, recommend any curricular or pedagogical changes that might be deemed helpful to improve outcomes for student learning. Changes should be implemented by the 2006-07 academic year.

· 2005-07 - Once student learning goals/outcomes/assessment measures are in place, the cycle should be restarted, i.e., the new information that comes in each year should be used to reexamine all aspects of our educational mission to find ways to improve.

SUMMARY OF ACTION ITEMS FOR 2004-2009

LAW-1. Increase revenues by increasing tuition to a level more consistent with other public law schools in the region. Use increased revenue to fund more faculty, including a Legal Writing Director and other faculty who could expand the clinical, externship and skills curriculum, teach required courses (thereby making it possible to section some of these large classes to improve the learning environment), hire a law school based IT staff member, fund library acquisitions and student scholarships, and for other purposes.

LAW-2. Create a smart classroom and make other improvements in technological infrastructure using grant money.

LAW-3. Review the curriculum and seek ways to enhance skills and professionalism training, appoint a Director of Legal Writing and develop a coordinated writing program, develop an introduction to law course for novice students, and engage in a discussion of the curriculum to increase overall comprehension and coordination, and to determine how the curriculum will achieve agreed goals for student learning.

LAW-4. Re-examine library collection development policies, and find additional ways to increase funding and/or electronic access to materials.

LAW-5. Continue to focus on diversity among student body and faculty.

LAW-6. Expand public service opportunities for students and faculty. This will be done by reviewing the clinical and externship programs to find ways to strengthen or even expand in this area, supporting the pro bono student organization, improving our career services program, reviewing and enhancing Continuing Legal Education by greater cooperation with the State Bar, and participating in a Wyoming legal needs assessment.

LAW-7. Explore the possibility of creating a Rural Law Center – as an umbrella for a number of public service projects involving the legal needs of a rural population, and for scholarly projects involving areas of distinction, such as environment and natural resources, and the history and culture of Wyoming and the region.

LAW-8. Increase the internationalization of the Law School – by expanding course offerings, possibly by using the videoconferencing capability of the “smart classroom,” among other ways, supporting study-abroad activities, exploring faculty and/or student exchanges with foreign law schools, exploring partnering with another law school on a study abroad program, and recruiting foreign academics as visiting or adjunct professors.

LAW –9. Improve the learning environment for students by increasing faculty-student contact through the creation of small sections of first year required courses; experimenting with group work in courses; holding workshops on how to implement active student learning in our classes; and encouraging faculty collaboration on improving student learning.

LAW-10. Establish an Academic Success Center for the law school to retain students in academic trouble, provide exam-taking skills assistance, house a legal writing center, and possibly to help prepare students for the bar examination by, among other initiatives, maintaining a bank of past bar-exam questions and materials.

LAW – 11. Enhance faculty scholarship by improving information exchange among colleagues regarding works in progress; engaging in regular faculty discussions of scholarship; establishing a mentoring program for non-tenured faculty; revisiting College of Law policies and individual job descriptions concerning scholarship, teaching and service; recognizing scholarship of legal pedagogy; and encouraging interdisciplinary efforts.

LAW – 12. Address issues concerning the bar exam. The College will seek to improve communication among law faculty, bar examiners, law students, and the bar review course providers, and we will work with the national Joint ABA/AALS Working Group on law schools and bar admissions.

LAW –13. Establish a plan for assessment of student learning which will involve setting goals and objectives for student learning, reviewing curriculum and learning environment, and identifying and using assessment tools to measure outcomes. Finally, we will use the information in the “feedback loop” in make appropriate changes in curriculum and teaching methods.