This year’s 1L curriculum could have looked very different. In March, the Faculty Council Standing Curriculum Committee voted on a series of proposed changes to the 1L curriculum. The most notable and controversial proposed change was to swap the formats of Contract Law and Administrative Law. Contracts would be offered as a mid-sized and semesterized course, while Admin would be a full year course taught in both large and small group sections. Further, LPPE would be taught in the winter semester and Contracts would be taught in the fall. There would not be a fall reading week for 1Ls, as the content of the LPPE Ethics Intensive would be taught in early January.
While the changes were not approved this year, a similar change could be proposed again in the near future. The positions and dynamics that shaped last year’s discussion may determine the future shape of the 1L curriculum.
One purpose of the proposed change was to evaluate the effectiveness of Admin when delivered in a conventional year-long format; likewise, to evaluate contracts when offered as a mid-size, semestered section. Faculty also wanted to determine whether LPPE and the LPPE intensive week are more successful when offered in second term when students have more background understanding of substantive legal doctrine than in first term. Furthermore, it was argued that the proposed changes were needed because without the changes Faculty leaves and teaching preferences could not be accommodated without increasing certain class sizes.
The proposed changes turned out to be a very divisive issue among faculty members. In the build-up to the Committee’s vote, a large number of professors provided the Committee with written arguments for and against the changes. With Faculty split on the issue, it became clear that the votes of the three SLS representatives on the Committee would be critical to whether the changes were approved or not.
Since the issue was only introduced to the SLS halfway through the winter term, there was very little time to consult with students and determine whether they broadly supported the proposed curriculum changes. For this reason, the SLS representatives opposed the changes on procedural grounds, holding that any significant change to the curriculum should be put before students with sufficient time to consider the effects of such a change.
Furthermore, the limited consultation that was carried out highlighted substantive issues with the proposed changes. The primary concern that students held was that the number of contact hours, or in-class teaching hours, for contracts would be reduced. This was perceived as a problem because contracts is viewed a key private law course. Students were also concerned about the increased workload in the first semester, which would include a mid-sized paper, the LRW assignment and small-group papers without the benefit of a reading week. For these and other reasons, the SLS also opposed to changes on substantive grounds.
After a lengthy debate, the Committee did not recommend the proposed changes to Faculty Council; this was largely in part due to the fact that the SLS Committee members opposed the changes. To their credit, certain members of faculty made it clear that they were very uncomfortable recommending the changes without student support.
