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Prsdn s' Addres
ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN LAW SCHOOLS - ONE DUPONT CIRCLE e WASHINGTON, D.C. 20036 No. 85-1 JANUARY 1985
WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT:
TEACHING AND SCHOLARSHIP
By
Roger C. Cramto'
(Prepared for delivery to the House of Representatives of the Association of American Law Schools, January 4, 1985,
Washington, D.C.)
In recent years affairs of state have dominated the remarks of my predecessors. A succession of regulatory
measures, usually emanating from the American Bar Association, have required attention: mandated instruction in
professional skills and professional responsibility; the special problems of schools with a strong religious affiliation;
and the faculty status of clinical teachers. Each controversy was resolved by a compromise which, although not fully
satisfying to the contending interests, provides the basis for continuing improvement in both the quality and
diversity of legal education.
With these regulatory controversies no longer at white heat, we are enjoying a happy moment of calm. What can
a president-elect speak about when there is no ready-made controversy creating internal and external strife? I
propose some brief reflections on the importance and vitality of those activities that led us to choose the academic life
- teaching and scholarship. Isn't that what it's all about - teaching and scholarship?
In times of fiscal retrenchment, institutional self-examination, and personal doubt, it is easy for teachers to fall
into cynicism and despair. And some trends in higher education warrant our concern. [T]he modern university,
Nevitt Sanford has said, has succeeded in separating almost everything that belongs together. . . . [Flields of
inquiry [have] been subdivided until they have become almost meaningless; research has been separated from
teaching, teaching and research from action, and, worst of all, thought from humane feeling.
Law schools have not escaped this fragmentation of the educational enterprise. Passive students drift off to
work settings. Some lonely professors concentrate on specialized scholarship that may be intelligible only to a small
coterie of other specialists; others divert their attention to outside consulting. Institutional reward mechanisms
encourage narrow and solitary specialized work while deemphasizing teaching, breadth of scholarship, and collegial
activity. Students and faculty are absorbed, competitively and acquisitively, in ever narrower specialties and the
development of technical virtuosity. Breadth, coherence, cooperation, and communal goals tend to suffer. How do
we rebuild our morale as teachers in times such as these?
The saving grace is that both teachers and students are social animals who are naturally inquisitive, cooperative,
and open to insight. They not only have an innate capacity to learn, but find teaching and learning enjoyable and
pleasurable - unless, of course, the pleasure and enjoyment have been driven out because education has become a
grim effort dominated by a boot-camp mentality or the rote learning of formulas.
EDITOR: NOEL J. AUGUSTYN, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: MILLARD H. RUUD
Printing and Distribution Courtesy of Foundation Press, Inc.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.aals/aalsnews1985&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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