Law Professor Tampers with Student Evaluations
From InsideHigherEd: “This much is undisputed: One evening three years ago, a then-professor at the University of Iowa’s College of Law tampered with anonymous student evaluations that rate teaching effectiveness. Kenneth Kress admits to replacing three unfavorable student-completed questionnaires with…
Legislative Audiences for Law Review Articles
Cardozo Law School held an event entitled “Trends in Federal Judicial Citations and Law Review Articles” where 7 appellate judges and several law professors discussed the general decline in court citations to law review articles. The New York Lawyer writeup…
Spring Break
This last week was Spring Break. Where did my Spring Break go? Three words: FACULTY ACTIVITY REPORT.
Merritt on Teaching Evaluations
I’ve previously blogged on problems with student evaluations of teaching. First, I’ve expressed concern about the anonymous nature of the feedback, which means that the evaluators have reduced accountability for what they say. Second, there’s evidence that superficial things like…
Favorite Halloween Legal Cases
With Halloween coming up, I’ve been thinking–what are professors’ favorite Halloween-themed cases? My vote is Stambovsky v. Ackley, the famous NY “haunted house” case. See my post from a year ago on the case. Let me know what’s your favorite…
Administrative Duties as Academic Director
When I was considering the opportunity to become Academic Director of the law school’s High Tech Law institute, a lot of people warned me that the administrative duties would cut into my time for scholarship. I knew this would be…
What Law Students Want From Law Professors
James B. Levy, As a Last Resort, Ask the Students: What They Say Makes Someone an Effective Law Teacher, 58 Me. L. Rev. 50 (2006): “[T]he profile of the ideal law school professor from the students’ perspective is someone who…
Sexy Professors are Better Professors (?)
I couldn’t read this report without hearing the 1970s Rod Stewart song in my head: “If you want my body and you think I’m sexy, come on sugar let me know.” I’ve previously blogged on Ratemyprofessor.com, the role of sexiness…
Teaching the Context of Contract Drafting
At the ABA Annual Meeting, I was on a “train the trainer” panel with Sue Irion, Tina Stark and Charles Fox regarding the teaching of contract drafting. I talked about how to teach the substantive law that underlies contracts. Because…
Getting Scholarship Read and Cited
In January, we had a roundtable at Marquette to discuss the steps we can take to increase readership/awareness of the articles we publish. This blog post summarizes some of our discussions. Traditionally, law professor authors marketed their articles rather passively….