First, a quick explanation for the sudden spamming of your Google Reader and other RSS clients yesterday. I usually prep an entry daily but don’t actually post it until I’ve had a chance to go through and tweak it — make sure all the spelling is correct, all the links go to the right places, the paragraphs aren’t too long, etc etc etc. It’s a tedious process, and one I’ve occasionally forgotten about or put on the backburner while handling other priorities.
That happened most of last week, hence why you got a blizzard of 5 days of updates all at once Shouldn’t happen again any time soon (hopefully) since class tends to keep my mind focused on routine. Please accept my apologies
Now to the day’s events: the North Carolina Senate unveiled their version of the state’s budget.
The potential bad news? Buried in the text of the budget bill is language authorizing the University President — in the name of offsetting budget cuts made by the Legislature — to unilaterally approve extra tuition increases of up to $750/student!
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, for the 2010-2011 fiscal year only, the constituent institutions may, with the approval of the President of The University of North Carolina, increase tuition by up to seven hundred fifty dollars ($750.00) per academic year. This increase shall be in addition to other increases authorized for the fiscal year. These funds shall be used only to offset the institutions’ management flexibility reductions.
My gut instinct tells me this was a concession to folks from the Boards of Trustees at UNC Chapel Hill and UNC School of the Arts, who have both been particularly vocal critics of the UNC Board of Governors‘s policy of capping combined tuition/fee increases at 6.5% per year. This tuition predictability policy has worked wonders for containing the rising cost of education in North Carolina, enabling students and their families to plan ahead for their college degree and — more importantly IMO — ensuring financial aid availability can keep up with the rising cost of attendance.
But some of our more-elite institutions have argued the policy is eroding their ability to stay competitive with peer institutions in other states, and they want to raise tuition substantially higher.
They’d get their wish with this particular provision of the budget, which would basically nuke everything the BOG’s 6.5% plan put into place. Take UNCCH as an example: tuition for in-state undergraduates for 2009-10 was $3,865.00. Add in the $200 increase the campus requested (which would take effect instead of the 8% student tax). Then this $750 goes on top of it. Tuition for 2010-11 would now be $4,815.00 — essentially a 25% increase in a single year
The language also practically guarantees that the increases will go into effect. By incorporating the “[n]otwithstanding any other provision of law” verbiage, it essentially circumvents all of the checks and balances built into the UNC system in approving the increase. A campus’s Board of Trustees doesn’t have to request the increase; the statewide Board of Governors doesn’t have to approve it. Based on this current language, the only person that matters in determining whether the extra increases happens or not is UNC President Erskine Bowles… who already announced back in February that he’s retiring at the end of this year.
It basically enables legislators to avoid hostile parents in an election year by saying the UNC system ultimately made the decision on whether or not to increase tuition. It enables the UNC system to also avoid those same hostile parents by saying it was the Legislature that cut university funding that led to the tuition increases.
I’ve got a tremendous amount of respect for Erskine Bowles and what he has accomplished during his tenure as President of the UNC system, and I take him at his word when he says he’s “a ‘low tuition’ guy.” But I’d still prefer seeing this particular language stripped out of the budget when the House adopts their version, or at the very least have it watered down in the joint House-Senate conference committee so that a campus’s Board of Trustees has to request the increase and both the UNC President and Board of Governors have to approve it before it goes into effect.
At the very least hopefully then everyone will have time to realize how profoundly damaging a ~$950 permanent tuition increase — a 25% boost even at the most expensive public university in the state — will be to the accessibility and affordability of a quality college education in North Carolina.
My fingers are crossed on behalf of the 215,000+ students in the University that their legislators are listening…
With a continued lack of success on the job front and the financial situation in the TDot household looking grim, I went ahead and signed up today for one of the few available summer classes for no-longer-1Ls-but-not-quite-2Ls-officially-yet.
It’s probably not the best investment of my time in light of the earlier comments about Fall OCI, but as they say in politics “you can’t save the world if you can’t pay the rent”
I’m hoping to finagle my way into one of NCCU Law‘s clinic programs so I can at least rack up some hands-on experience in addition to the grade and loan $$. But now comes the challenge of making sure I get that financial aid lined up with only 48 hours before classes start so all my tuition & fees are paid
I’ll keep you posted on how it all turns out. Have a great night y’all!
Only a brief post today folks. Spent the day down in Raleigh watching commencement events for my alma mater N.C. State University — 雅雅 is now a Wolfpack alumna!
This was my first commencement as an alum, and dozens of friends from Student Government and elsewhere crossed the stage today. The Legal Eagles of the NC Central University School of Law also graduated earlier this morning too
I’m über-proud of all of you! Congratulations to the Class of 2010!!
I rarely check out the news stories that come through to my BlackBerry from the ABA Journal Online, but the headline for this one caught my eye: “Lawyers — Especially Men — May Be Too Optimistic About Case Outcomes, Survey Says”
A law professor at the University of California Irvine has co-authored a research paper into attorney predictions of success in their cases. From the research results, 44% of case outcomes were less successful than the “minimum goals” set by the attorney. More confident attorneys missed their goals more often than less confident ones. And male attorneys tend to overestimate results more than females.
The whole 25-page paper is a lot more detailed and definitely worth a read. It includes some interesting and counterintuitive findings (e.g. estimating results doesn’t seem to improve with years of experience).
But my question is this: although a majority of attorneys meet-or-exceed their minimum goals, how is that 44% able to stay in business? They apparently not only add and retain paying clients, but according to the paper also likely include a hefty chunk of senior partners and other high-ranking litigators. I’d think overestimating results would lead to some kind of economic and professional repercussions, not rising to senior partner status.
The paper concludes more research is needed to control for other factors, so maybe we’ll find out eventually. Until then it’s something interesting to chew on.
…or, perhaps, divine intervention. That was the theme of my first speech to the UNC Board of Governors, after taking my oath of office as the Board’s student member.
With my term as UNCASG President ending in the middle of final exams, I never really paused to realize how accurate a characterization that is of my life — and particularly my involvement in Student Government.
It’s a point that got reiterated a couple times over the past few days.
Comments from one of the forefathers of ASG
Earlier today I was getting ready to drive down to Fayetteville State University to run a parliamentary procedure workshop for their Student Government Association, when I logged into Facebook and saw this comment from a past President of UNCASG. This guy is one of maybe 2-3 people who were pivotal in making the organization into what it is today, so I consider it high praise
It’s praise I never could have gotten had I not been elected President. And that election was the end result of meeting the Pickle Princess three years ago this past Sunday. I was attending a reception for legislators hosted by the University system, my first event as Student Senate President at NC State. Even though I had been working for a lobbying firm for months I still felt profoundly out of place. So rather than continue trying (poorly) to blend in and mingle, I sat down at a table next to her and introduced myself. We ended up becoming friends, then competitors, then colleagues. Most of what I did in the Association when I was Senate President was to impress her, and she returned the favor by getting us elected a year later when folks loved her but loathed me.
And that UNCASG election itself never would have happened had I not first been elected Student Senate President, a freak election that hinged on my opponent’s taste for apparel touting our university’s athletic arch-rivals. This was after I served the preceding year as a Student Senator, appointed to a vacancy after first losing a 4-person Student Senate election to 3 seats… coming in 4th, to at least 1 guy who didn’t even campaign
That appointment was actually my 3rd separate stint in the Senate. I was a Student Senator my freshman year, decided to run for Student Senate President that Spring (as a freshman), and — predictably — got totally obliterated. Yet the guy who beat me “agreed” to appoint me to a Senate vacancy, scheduled my appointment for confirmation, even had me show up to the Senate meeting where I’d be approved. Then, as I was walking to the front of the chamber… he withdrew my nomination, prompted by a pre-planned objection made by the Student Body Treasurer at the time.
The Treasurer happened to be… the same guy who wrote those remarks on Facebook I mentioned at the start of this post
To this day that experience easily ranks among the most embarrassing moments of my life, but it taught me some valuable lessons. Most importantly: it motivated me to work harder to excel at what I did so I wouldn’t go through a similar experience again. That motivation led to my return to the Student Senate the next year (albeit briefly), kept me focused on returning to school after finances forced me to drop out, and reminded me to seek perfection in everything I do since.
Anyhow, I’d go on with more examples but this particular post is already pretty long. Was it all a chance coincidence of coincidences? Divine intervention? A bit of both? Not sure, but I know it’s been an eventful journey… with an even longer road ahead
It’s been a couple months since the last time I had any crazy law-related nightmares. Even though the first one seemed to be like a bad episode of Law & Order, the latter ended up being about exams… with a CivPro flavor.
That trend continued this morning
Despite going to bed around midnight, I randomly woke up at 3:10am. In my dreams I was in the NCCU Law building and had just picked up my CivPro final exam. After pulling the exam from the envelope, I notice the whole thing is a lot thicker than I remember when I turned it in. I flip past the multiples to the essay, where for some reason each individual paragraph ended up on a separate page… which I guess irritated MDG, because I lost a point per page from the excess white space
There was also a disproportionate amount of red ink relative to the black text and white emptiness. After looking closer I notice my essay has a ton of spelling errors at -1 point apiece. It was really basic stuff too — one of the party names in the dream hypo was “Mr. Goodall” which I kept misspelling as two words “Good All”. Then I notice a bunch of basic possessive errors ([foo]s’ vs [foo]s’s) at -1 point each, and even a few homophone mixups (to vs two vs too and such) also at -1 point each.
Right before I woke up, I flipped back to the front page and saw I got a D+ on the final, then calculated in my mind that I’d end up with a C for the final grade. So I don’t know if I can really consider it a nightmare since I passed the class. But I certainly wouldn’t describe it as an enjoyable experience.
And this law thing is something I want to do for a living? Someone pass the Ambien…
Efforts at securing gainful summer employment have been fruitless thus far, no doubt partly due to the bad economy but mostly due to my late start on job-hunting.
And with summer school at NCCU Law slated to start next week, that means I need to decide in the next couple days whether I should keep looking for work or take some summer courses instead.
Pros to summer school: Knocking out 2-3 courses means I’ll have a lighter load at the end of my 3L year, which will be time I can spend on something non-boring; financial aid refund $$ is more than the $0 I’m making while unemployed; and I won’t switch out of “law school mode” so there’s less adjustment when we start back in the Fall.
Cons to summer school: I’ve taken classes every single summer for the past 4 straight years, and would really like the time off
Give me your thoughts, dear readers. If our roles were reversed would you prefer taking summer courses or staying as far away from the law school as possible?
To any of the mothers out there who happen to swing by law:/dev/null — including a number of fellow bloggers — I wanted to officially wish all of you a happy Mother’s Day!
My mom dropped out of college to raise me, and Nan has probably influenced who I am today more so than anyone else I’ve ever met. I’m incredibly thankful for them both I can only imagine how totally different life would have turned out had I grown up around anyone else…
No one’s really sure when the final grades will be posted for 1Ls at the N.C. Central University School of Law. Some 2Ls have told us not to expect anything until June at the earliest, while the professors point us toward the school’s academic calendar requiring grades to be in by May 11 — Tuesday.
Regardless of when those grades come out, I figure I’ll keep up the tradition of post-exam handicapping by giving y’all a rundown of how I think things went I’ve also included the final grade I’m hoping for in the course.
Civil Procedure II: This was our last final exam and I choked. Or “royally FUBAR’d” to borrow the phrase-ology of a colleague. I felt comfortable about the multiple choice questions, but inexplicably stopped paying attention to the clock and ran out of time before touching 60%ish of the essay… which itself was worth 60%ish of the final exam grade My only hope is that there’s a sizable curve on the exam, because otherwise I may come perilously close to having to retake the course. Hoping for: C+.
Contracts II: Out of the 18 exams we’ve taken during the 1L year, I’ve never left an exam feeling intellectually drained except with this one. Not to anthropomorphize much, but I felt like I got physically beat by this exam. Summed up my thoughts on it here. I’ll genuinely be content if I just pass. Hoping for: C-.
Criminal Law I: This was our first exam, and even though we were given 3 hours I had wrapped up after just 1. Not sure if that meant I knew things really well or really didn’t know things at all, but since the midterm turned out well I’m hoping I replicated that performance on the final. Hoping for: A-.
Legal Research & Persuasion: Not sure what to think here. I had a solid A going into the final memo, which was worth 40% of the final grade. But then this happened. So that memo will likely be a lead weight on my final grade. We’ll see what happens… Hoping for: C.
Property II: Don’t have a sense for how this exam turned out. It focused on concurrent estates, landlord/tenant items, and easements & covenants. I wasn’t terribly comfortable with the material, but also didn’t feel terribly uncomfortable after the exam. So maybe that’s a good thing. Hoping for: B+.
Torts II: In talking with my classmates, there seems to be a consensus that the Torts exam wasn’t as difficult as it could have been. I felt the same way. Downside is that means there’s likely not much curve and it’ll be minor nit-picky things that separate the A’s from the B’s from the C’s. But hopefully I’ll be high enough that this class will be a GPA boost. Hoping for: A-.
So it’s looking like I’ll end my Spring semester with a 2.583 GPA… even lower than the 2.618 from last semester
I’m kicking myself particularly because those CivPro and LRP grades were totally avoidable self-inflicted injuries. But at this point what can you do other than pray?
If you’re still taking final exams this coming week, GOOD LUCK!! And I hope all of you have a good night
Shouldn’t happen again any time soon (hopefully) since class tends to keep my mind focused on routine. Please accept my apologies 
