Law Professor “Job Hopping”
National Law Journal: “More job hopping at schools.” This year, there was a lot of faculty movement at highly ranked law schools–a circumstance this article attributes to (1) Harvard’s decision to bring in new blood and reduce faculty-student ratios, and…
My Requirements for a Supervised Academic Paper
Students regularly ask me to supervise a paper of theirs. This blog post discusses my suggestions and requirements if you want me to supervise your paper. 1) At your earliest convenience, read Prof. Eugene Volokh’s book, Academic Legal Writing [Amazon…
Student Evaluations of Teachers “Flawed but Fixable”
The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on research by Anthony G. Greenwald, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington. Some tidbits from his research: * “At best, student ratings provide a weak measure of instructional quality” * “70…
Media Relations for Professors
On Monday, SCU had a “thank you” lunch for professors and administrators who had media exposure this year. The formal program included three speakers: Ed Clendaniel, San Jose Mercury News opinion page writer; Dana Nachman, NBC 11 special projects producer;…
Law Professor Salaries 2006-07
For a couple of years now, the search term “law professor salary” or “law professor salaries” consistently has been one of the top 10 search terms used to find my blogs. It seems to be a topic of significant interest!…
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…