Mind Change

Professor Umbridge said, “progress for progress's sake must be discouraged,”[i] which kind of fits with what a wise man once told me, which is that people are more afraid of change than they are of anything else. These sayings were never more relevant than in the past few months in regards to the United States. Now that elections are over, and the victors have taken control, the time has come to bring those changes to fruition. And it is now that the people are beginning to realize just how much they preferred the status quo. People are not happy, no matter what side of the field you’re on.

Let’s gaze through a more narrowed scope at the NIU COL itself. Consider, if you will, the reasoning for two of the changes that are going on in our little corner of the NIU Campus: The legal writing curriculum changes and the Law Library North Wing renovation.

First, what are the reasons for the curriculum changes? While the overall reasoning is extremely complex, the core rationale can generally be condensed down to the fact that students had deficits in their analytical and writing skills coming into law school; this, in turn, could create problems and challenges in the transition to law student and ultimately might have hindered students’ later success.[ii] To remedy this, the faculty added a legal methods course to the curriculum designed to introduce students to the skills needed for success and to allow those skills to be fostered throughout an entire academic career, rather than thrusting students into a more traditional writing environment and possibly setting them up for failure.

Addressing these points, I believe that the legal writing curriculum changes resulted and will continue to result in a net-benefit to the NIU community and legal community. However, having only 4 classes in the fall semester of 1L year could eventually lead students into a false sense that they will have the same amount of free time in later semesters. My recommendation would be to move the Constitutional Law I & II classes back into 1L year. Especially with Con. Law I being 2 credit hours, it will still contribute to the goal of continued 1L academic success.

Now to the North Wing renovations. The reasons that I could ascertain for why the North Wing has been renovated include the following:

(1) Other law schools are renovating their libraries to include more social spaces and “versatile” spaces (e.g. Yale, Stanford, etc.)

(2) NIU Law students wanted the renovations, and

(3) There are parts of the law school now accessible that weren’t before.

I dispute the reasoning on the first two points. Just because other universities are doing something doesn’t mean that it will benefit out situation. Also, I’m sure any survey will find at least one person who desires to make some sort of change in any given situation. However, the third point is compelling. Before these renovations, it was a huge burden to access the student organization space on the north side of the building. Secondly, it allowed the expansion of student social space. Currently, there is a (shameless plug) chess club forming and morning bagels are a welcome treat. Therefore, while the other two reasons don’t carry much weight with me, the third does.

These two scenarios bring to light a simple concept. Whenever a person or institution attempts to make changes in any capacity, the question we should ask is not, “why do we continue to do something?” Rather, we should ask, “How can we make things better?” This should be a time for identifying our shortfalls. From there, we can start to build solutions, rather than creating impenetrable barriers that make us grow further and further independent in a world that demands interdependence. As such, the legal writing curriculum, as shown in recent years, has benefitted our standing as a professional school. And, while the changes to the North Wing may have been inconvenient; nonetheless, they contribute to a better law school community, and will, I believe, strengthen our student organizations. These inputs have produced better outputs. They have made things better.

_______________________________________________________[i] Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix. London: Bloomsbury, 2015. Print.

[ii] A special thanks to Professor Hunter, director of the Academic Success Program, for her assistance in my understanding of these concepts.