[Alumni-chat] about Dixon and Sparks

[Stephen L. Wasby]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Sistersara at aol.com>
To: <alumni-chat at w3.antioch.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2008 4:57 PM
Subject: Re: [Alumni-chat] about Dixon and Sparks


>
> In a message dated 2/12/2008 6:43:16 A.M. Central Standard Time,
> wasb at albany.edu writes:
>
> Although  clearly skeptical
> about the efforts beyond Y.S., he supported the law  school, and it wasn't
> just because he was a political scientist.  I don't  know to what extent
> the
> financing of the law school
> played a part in that  (I don't believe we talked about it), and certainly
> the law school project  ultimately didn't work out because of the large
> amounts
> of funding that would  have been required to bring it up to standards.
> Sparks'
> opposition to other  parts of the network was certainly based on
> "overextension," which certain  speaks to financing.
>
> Steve Wasby '59
>
>
>
> It fell to Al Guskin to wind up the Law School during the time I served on
> the Alumni Board.  And yes, the problem was money.  Unlike other types  of
> schools, Law (and medicine) require very specific infrastructure if you
> want  your
> finished product to be accepted into the profession, and the ABA decides,
> for example, whether your library is adequate.

    = To say that Guskin would it up is correct in one sense, and he
probably made
the right choice: faced with sacrificing the law school or the College, he
sacrificed
the law school. And money was a major issue.

    HOWEVER, what appears below omits some important elements. Most
particularly,
the law school was in D.C. because of Jean Camper Cahn and Edgar Cahn (War
on
Poverty), and, most important, it was intended to have an unusual
curriculum --"clinic"-
based-- rather than standard, and to reach out to nontraditional students.
Those who
have had another career and then decided to go to law school fill many law
school
classes, not just at Hamline; and offering unusual courses is not what
differentiated
Antioch -- it was the way the material was to be delivered. That, not
surprisingly, was
one of the elements that set off the ABA, and would have, apart from the
financial
woes and library space deficiencies, and the fact that the faculty did not
publish in
law reviews. (I have seen a number of the reports, because I have had access
to them
through a member of the ABA committee.)  Indeed, any law school with a
non-traditional
curriculum got a particularly "hard look" from the ABA: see the new(er)
state law school
at CUNY-Queens in the New York system.
    And D.C. had a rather different "demographic set" than Dayton's . . .
    It is simply NOT the case that D.C. was "not underserved" by lawyers;
there sure
weren't enough poverty lawyers, although there were plenty of Senate and
House staffers
going to law school at night on their path to middle class careers . . .

>
> But Guskin thought the biggest error with the Law School was putting it in
> DC.  DC is neither underserved by Lawyers, nor by Law Schools.  He
> thought it
> could have been saved had it been, for instance in Dayton.  In  Dayton,
> which
> then, and perhaps now has no law school

    = Whoa, folks! The University of Dayton has long had a law school. And
hardly
(or hahdly, as we say in New England) needed a second one. And Cincinnati
had one,
and Toledo had one, and northeastern Ohio has several, and Ohio State has a
very
big one, and . . .
    Anyone, the factual premise is wrong, so it would not have "become a 
unique
community institution and asset."
     Steve Wasby

-- it could have become a  unique
> community institution and asset -- gained support from the  community, and
> as
> Lawyers tend to do, gradually become part of the political  class in the
> area.
> One of the better comparisons perhaps is Hamline  University in St.
> Paul -- a
> Methodist College somewhat like Ohio Weslyan --  which opened a law school
> about
> the same time Antioch did, and it is doing  well.  They have made a
> speciality of odd and underserved legal  specialities that don't generate
> high incomes
> -- things like  immigration law, and their recruitment model is different.
> They are  not so much looking for the person fresh out of College with a
> Pol.
> Sci. or  History degree -- they are more interested in K-12 teachers who
> have
> decided  that a career in Labor Law is a great move.
>
> As to Sparks -- I didn't know him particularly well, but talked with him
> just as the fight between himself (as the representative of a significant
> part
> of the Faculty) and Dixon was starting, and he and they clearly understood
> the
> core issue -- would the faculty own the curriculum or not? -- and knew it
> had
> profound consequences for the institution.  I keep bringing it up because
> in re-organization and revival I suspect it still is a very core issue
> that
> needs to be comprehended, and however things get set up, the ownership of
> curriculum and academic standards needs to be firmly in the hands of
> Faculty.
>
> As to the scotch -- I'll pass.  Decent local micro-brewed beer  and the
> red
> wines that keep the French Healthy are more my style.
>
>
>
> **************The year's hottest artists on the red carpet at the Grammy
> Awards. Go to AOL Music.
> (http://music.aol.com/grammys?NCID=aolcmp00300000002565)
> _______________________________________________
> Alumni-chat mailing list
> Alumni-chat at w3.antioch.edu
> http://w3.antioch.edu/mailman/listinfo/alumni-chat
> Visit http://www.Antioch-College.edu today!
>
>
> -- 
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.20.2/1271 - Release Date: 2/11/2008
> 8:16 AM
>
>