Since its approval in 1998, the Legal Studies program has boasted one of the highest numbers of student involvement for an academic program, but it will no longer be offered to students at Fairfield.
Thursday March 21, notice went out that the Legal Studies program at Fairfield had been cancelled. According to Joy Gordon, philosophy professor and director of the Legal Studies program, there is not enough funding to support the staffing for a program of its size.
Next year there will be enough LS capstones so that current sophomores and juniors in the program can fulfill the requirements for the minor.
The Legal Studies minor program consistently had 80-90 students enrolled per year, according to Gordon. Typically there are no more than 16 students in any given minor program, with the exception of International Studies.
Gordon explained that programs are comprised of professors from various departments who volunteer to contribute without compensation. Only the directors of programs get paid, receiving the equivalent of $30 per week.
“To run the program and provide stable teaching for LS10 is a full time job,” said Gordon. “As of now, this full-time job is divided up between a whole bunch of people.”
According to Rev. Thomas J. Regan, S.J., co-founder of the Legal Studies Program, the program was built around the fact that there were already a number of courses with a legal dimension, and all they needed were LS10 Introduction to Legal Studies and LS300 Capstone, classes. But student interest grew so rapidly without a lot of advertising that providing steady teaching for LS10 became a challenge.
“Because of the demand, the last few years we had to hire adjuncts who were lawyers to teach sections of LS10,” said Regan. “Many were quite eager to take on this new responsibility, but they had no idea how much time was involved in teaching this course. Consequently we experienced quite a turnover in staffing for the intro sections and Dr. Gordon found herself doing much more than her share.” According to Gordon, there have been six LS10 teachers in five years.
Three years ago, Gordon and Regan proposed hiring someone full-time to teach two sections of LS10 and handle all of the administrative responsibilities of running the conferences and other activities associated with the program.
“Neither she nor I felt that given our other responsibilities at the university, we could devote the amount of time to the program that was required in order to run it in a first class way,” said Regan.
For three years, the proposal for a full-time professor has been denied because of other funding priorities. “No other non-departmental programs had a full-time staffing component,” said Regan. “Here it was decided that there were other areas of the undergraduate curriculum that needed the financial resources that were available.”
This unfortunately meant that the Legal Studies program had to be cancelled.
Gordon made the decision that she needed to give up her position as director, which she then offered to all the faculty involved in the Legal Studies program when they met last spring. But, considering that the program is so large and the pay is not going to get any better, nobody was able or willing to accept the position.
“There are no longer any faculty who are willing to make substantial investments of their time and resources when the administration is not willing to make significant investments of its resources,” Gordon said.
The program was responsible for bringing a number of popular events onto campus. Occasional law school panels with representatives from Albany Law School to Yale Law School, a conference on the death penalty, a panel on immigration law and the upcoming conference on restorative justice are a few.
“I’m disappointed because the minor is one of the factors that pushed me toward applying to law schools,” said Ed Hertwig ’02 of the program’s cancellation. “I think the minor is beneficial because it touches on a lot of different academic areas like philosophy, psychology and religion. I know that LS10 and the LS capstone help students learn legal research and writing, which helps a lot after graduation. It is great to know that going into law school.”
Kevin Estela ’02 agreed that the program’s death is disappointing.
“It is very unfortunate since growing numbers of students are applying to law school every year,” said Estela. “I am very upset because I have enough credits to complete the minor twice over. It’s a shame to know other students won’t be able to experience the same classes.”
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