I answer Student Affairs when asked my profession and Higher Education as my industry. That’s how I see the last dozen years of my life, but the truth is I didn’t realize that Student Affairs was a profession until I joined it. My introduction to this profession came at my very own law school immediately following graduation and bar exam at the unconventional age of forty, but I have had the pleasure and opportunity to engage in such work at two other institutions of higher education since. But now, pun pathetically intended, I have returned to the scene of the crime to work in student affairs in a law school setting,
My law school colleagues use another term of art: Legal Education. That has always cracked me up. We’ll say that we work in legal education, like all the other education forms are illegal education. I enjoy the work. I have enjoyed all three of my professional stops in higher education, but having survived the unique ordeal of law school myself, I feel extra helpful here. So maybe I should just say that my field is Student Affairs with a bit of a specialty in law.
For those unfamiliar, I am not faculty. The academic classroom is the faculty habitat and the centerpiece of higher education, but student affairs professionals are the folks that complement the academic mission of a college/university/professional school by nurturing the formation of mind, body, and spirit in the students outside of the classroom. I love what I get to do.
We just finished “Launch Week” at the Caruso School of Law. It was the tenth annual Launch Week, which was especially fun since I was involved in launching Launch Week a decade ago. As one might hope, others have taken what we started and continued to make it better and better. The original idea was to blow up “new student orientation,” which always sounded sort of optional, and dive into law school on Day One. It was an awesome week. The new students were noticeably engaged and professional, and the upper-division students that volunteered as mentors were outstanding, most returning to pay forward their past experience as brand-new students.
Yesterday, just after the new students’ first real law school classes, we gathered on Pepperdine’s breathtaking Alumni Park overlooking the Pacific Ocean for a barbecue to close out the week. And since I left, the student government added a little friendly competition among the class sections to the festivities, which included a Giant Jenga war, an actual tug-of-war, and finally, a little dodgeball. Law students can be the least bit competitive, and they got into it, but consistent with the DNA of this particular law school, they got into it with laughter and cheering for one another.
I took pictures and was especially proud of a few I snagged from the Jenga throwdown, where it struck me that it might provide a decent metaphor for what is to come. Deep, particular concentration was required of the students as they worked to dismantle and build upon something that seemed pretty sturdy in the first place, and with each passing moment the pressure of falling apart continued to mount. Sounded a little like law school to me. But the students kept delivering, one after the other, while their colleagues and mentors constantly cheered them on.
And then your whole world comes crashing down. Ha! That was a joke! Okay, maybe the metaphor isn’t perfect.
But my profession believes that you can learn some valuable lessons outside of the classroom, too. Even playing Giant Jenga.
Leslie was selected to be the student speaker at her law school graduation in 2015. I have always remembered something that she said: “A lot of people make lawyer jokes, but when your world falls apart, nobody calls a comedian.” This week, 185 impressive humans began their study of law here in Malibu, and it is an honor to be a part of the team that walks alongside them, complementing their formal studies, cheering them on, being there for the challenges that arise, caring for their wellbeing and personal development, and watching them transform into the people that you do call on in your darkest hour. That, my friends, is how I see my work in Student Affairs in Legal Education. What an honor.
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