Welcome to all of our new J.D., LLM and JSD students, and welcome back to our returning 2L, 3L, LLM and JSD students!
There will be a lot going on in the coming weeks and months, so please keep your eye on the Sounding Block, our weekly newsletter, for important announcements. Our goal is to make your experience at Nebraska Law rich and exciting both in class and out. I encourage you to attend as many of the lectures, CLE’s, networking and other events as you can. All of this will contribute to your legal education and increase value of your experience in law school.
We are privileged to have the Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts, at the College of Law to participate in the Hruska Lecture on September 19th. He will speak in the Hamann Auditorium from Noon to 1:00 pm that day, and then have lunch with a group of students and drop in to the second-year Constitutional Law classes. Please watch your emails next week for more information about this event and how to attend.
There will be many other speakers coming to the Law College this year, and I hope you will take advantage of the opportunity, usually over the noon hour, to learn something new and expand your horizons by attending their presentations. The Career Services Office has many employers coming to the Law College to make presentations and meet you, so I hope you will take advantage of those opportunities as well as you prepare for your careers.
There are many ways to get to know and learn from the faculty beyond the classroom. You are always encouraged to visit your professors in their offices during office hours if you have any questions about a class. But here are some other opportunities:
The College hosts a very special series called S.T.I.R. Talks. This acronym stands for Share, Think, Inspire, Relax. A few times each semester, a faculty member will do a short and entertaining presentation in the late afternoon in the student lounge about his or her research interests. These presentations are 15 minutes long (modeled on TED talks t), and will be followed by a social hour with refreshments. This is a fun and entertaining way for the faculty to discuss with students some really interesting issues in the law, and provide an opportunity to socialize in a relaxed setting.
Another way to get to know the faculty is to participate in our TYPO program. TYPO stands for Take Your Professor Out. If you want to take one of your professors or a dean or director out to lunch, the Dean's Office would be pleased to reimburse you for up to $25. This should be enough to cover all of the cost for two students and a professor (given Lincoln's generally reasonable lunch prices) and most of the cost for larger groups. In general, there are only two requirements: 1) each lunch must include at least one professor and at least two students and 2) each student is eligible for only one free lunch. Just pick up a reimbursement form from Patty Cavanagh, the receptionist in the Dean’s office, before you go to lunch, and then return the completed form and an itemized receipt to Patty.
Finally, this year we are beginning a new series called Table For Ten. This is a very informal series of lunches and conversations where one faculty member will sit over the noon hour with 9 students and discuss and a legal issue that is topical and in the news. Everyone brings his or her own lunch and you can engage in a conversation about an important issue of the day. There will be plenty of advance notice and time to sign up for these lunch conversations, which we will do once a month.
So again, welcome, and welcome back! I will again hold weekly office hours this year, so please check the video boards each week for the time. I will move the time around so that there are no permanent class conflicts. Please stop by with your questions, ideas, concerns, or just to say hello.
I wish you all the best for a wonderful year at Nebraska Law!
Susan