As some of you know, in this semester, I return full time to the classroom after serving as a dean for twelve years, eight at my current home, McGeorge, and four at the Bowen Law School in Arkansas. I am as excited as I am nervous, and, to implement a recommendation from a dear friend, because excitement and nervousness stimulate the same parts of the brain, I am trying to convince myself that I am really, really excited. As we careen towards the start of the fall semester, I thought I would share my six greatest hopes and dreams for all of us as we teach our fall classes.
(Tune in next week when I share my five or six greatest fears and nightmares . . . )
- Our students will be well prepared for class or, in the very few instances when they cannot be, will tell us before the start of class.
- Our students who are struggling will recognize they are struggling and ask for our help well before midterms.
- Our students will have the courage to candidly express and advocate for their views, the wisdom to interrogate ideas and not people, and the open-mindedness to listen for understanding and with respect to the views of those of their peers with whom they most strongly disagree.
- Our students will discover capabilities that they did not know they had, and we will play a role in them developing those capabilities and seeing those capabilities in themselves.
- We will struggle to meet our law schools’ mandatory means because our students perform so extraordinarily well on our exams.
- We will have these same hopes and dreams every semester for as long we teach.
Did I leave anything out?
