University of Texas School of Law - Peregrinus Yearbook (Austin, TX)

Page 11 text:

AROUND TOWNES 1990 PEREGR1NUS In January 1884, the Law and the Academic Departments moved into the west wing of the Old Main Building. Five years later, in 1889, the Law Department was housed in the central section of Old Main. — Photograph courtesy of Austin History Center, Austin Public Library. The classes were held in a big basement room. The seats formed a single semi-circular row and the members were seated alphabetically. At that time I weighed about 110 pounds, and owing to this seating arrangement, my seat was between two men of heroic names and stature: Robert E. Lee Roy and John Wilkes Booth Smith. Roy was stout and tall — about six feet, two or three inches; and Smith was slender but towered to the height of six feet, seven inches. We had no desks but were seated on folding chairs. — Letter from George E. Shelley, Class of 1894. AROUND TOWNES Around Towi»« — 7

Page 10 text:

LA W SCHOOL HISTORY 1990 PEREGRINUS From September through December 1883, the temporary Capitol, located at the southwest comer of Congress Avenue and Eleventh Street, housed the first classes of the Law Department (called Law School after 1920) and the Academic Department. — Photograph courtesy of Austin History Center, Austin Public Library. It was finally decided to use the temporary Capitol. We were permitted to use temporary plank partitions in making lecture rooms. It was decided to use the Senate Chamber as an assembly hall and to divide up the larger Hall of Representatives by means of plank partitions into lecture rooms. When work began, the arrangements we had made proved very unsatisfactory. Sounds penetrated through the thin plank partitions to such a degree as to disturb lectures or recitations. — Professor Milton Humphreys, member of the University's first faculty, April 15, 1913. 6 — taw SUioot Hi Kory

Page 12 text:

AROUND TOWNES 1990 PEREGRINUS A SHIFT TO LETTERS The most significant change to the law school’s academic structure in recent years was the adoption of a new grading system, taking effect in the fall of 1990. On Monday, April 16, 1990, the facility approved the recommendation of the Standards and Rules studcnt faculty committee that the current numerical system be abolished, and that grades be allotted according to an updated advisoty curve using the letters A+, A, A-, B+-, B, B-, C+, C, D and F. The advisory curve will be higher, and uniform for both first-year students and upperclassmen. Professor David Robertson and Associate Dean Julius Getman initiated this year's discussion with their proposal that frcshlaws be graded on a Pass Fail basis for their first semester and or entire first year. Robertson and Getman recognized a great deal of competition and anxiety among freshlaws, stemming in part from the 55 to 91 grading scale and unduly harsh fresh law curve. 1 had the fortune, along with Monica Freeman-Brennan and Heather Burris, of being a student selected for the committee as it evaluated the issues. Eight faculty members served as voting committee members, including Professor John Sampson who presided as chairman. From the outset, everyone on the committee acknowledged the problems sparking the Rob-ertson-German proposal, but most were not willing to go to a Pass Fail system as a solution. After a couple of meetings, the committee voted almost unanimously to raise the freshlaw curve to equal the upperclass curve. This was so that more students could receive good” grades, and to recognize the obsolescence of the low curve’s previous function of ’’weeding out” poor students. Other meetings focused on the nomen- by Michael O. Whitmire daturc of the grading system, that is, whether to use numbers or letters for official reporting purposes. The purpose of a 55 to 91 scale seemed confusing to both students and employers, and there were indications that some employers — particularly those out of state — thought that a realistic top grade was '’100' and did not adjust when comparing UT students with other law students. Monica Frccman-Brennan came up with the idea of doing a student survey to demonstrate what we felt was an overwhelming student dissatisfaction with the grading system — although we were not sure how well the faculty on the committee understood. By the end of January, Monica had spent a great deal of time tallying the figures, typing all of the student comments, and compiling them into a packet for all the members of the committee. As a pleasant surprise, the strong student opposition to the grading system, combined with a multitude of well-written poignant comments, really made an impact on some of the faculty on the committee. There was a lot of informal bantering regarding how the committee should address the concerns. Professors Powers, Robertson and Wellborn came up with a proposal based on student sentiment that we adopt an A B C D F system with a totally new curve. The committee had taken the survey to heart, and overwhelmingly adopted this proposal by a 9-2 vote shortly before spring break. Just after spring break, Chairman Sampson submitted the committee's recommendation to Dean Mark Yudof so that he could call a faculty meeting. After a couple of weeks, Yudof finally called a meeting for the faculty to vote on the issue. In the meantime, there was a flood of memos from the faculty. The most significant one was from Professor Joseph Dodge who suggested that a system including pluses and minuses would be better. The members of the committee had anticipated such an amendment surfacing at the meeting, and a survey by Wellborn indicated that the faculty was leaning in that direction. The committee met one last rime prior to the faculty meeting to discuss our proposal. We were concerned about the possibility of proposed amendments at the faculty meeting to our recommendation. We knew that a discussion of all the issues would take too long and meaningful evaluation would get bogged down — whereby we might be stuck with the numerical system. Thus, for political purposes, we amended the A B C D F proposal to include pluses and minuses. At the faculty meeting, the issue was discussed for more than two hours. Because there were many sub-issues involved with the recommendation, several faculty members did indeed want to discuss them. Dean Yudof had to call for several non-binding straw votes” to determine if there was a strong feeling one way or another on the issues and to narrow them down. In the end, the consensus seemed to be that since the committee had discussed many of the issues and concluded with the submitted proposal, that a rehashing or drafting session with the entire faculty would waste time and be unproductive. Hence, the proposal passed by a 25 to 8 margin, with two abstentions. The students on the committee were pleased with the change, and that the faculty had been responsive to student input and concerns. 8 — A Shift to Lctten