Professor Kingsfield stares down an unworthy student
Recently, I wrote about the sometimes eerie connections that are drawn in the web of social media. Yesterday, it happened again.
It was long about a morning, and I was scanning Twitter and posting some stories. When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a tweet from Yale Law School.
Well, to start with, that was odd, because I don’t follow Yale Law School. Nothing against them, mind you, even if they did decline my application 23 years ago; let’s let bygones be bygones. It just had never occurred to me that a New Haven artisan-lawyer bistro would offer me much useful information here in Phoenix. But because of those odd media-utilities, something in the Twitter machinery clunked and clanked and decided the content would benefit me—and it was right!
The Yale post surprised me. Here it is:
National Law Journal’s report: Yale launches Ph.D. in Law to train aspiring professors bit.ly/MZB47D#academia #law
— Yale Law School (@YaleLawSch) July 11, 2012
I retweeted it, with my own response. Here that is:
Is there a shortage, or a glut? RT @YaleLawSch NLJ report: Yale launches Ph.D. in Law to train aspiring professors bit.ly/MZB47D
— Tim Eigo (@azatty) July 11, 2012
I wondered how many people could possibly be seeking to become professors, amid a legal downturn and declining law school applications. A day later, there is still no response from the Law School. (Perhaps they cross-checked old applications and decided they could ignore me again.) So I chalked it up to a misguided school endeavor.
But then, later in the same day (here comes the eerie part), I was on the ASU Law School website for some random thing (oh yes, the c.v. of the new Dean, whom we Q&A in an upcoming issue). Something on the ASU Law home page caught my eye.
An “Aspiring Law Professors Conference.”
Get OUT. No way.
Here’s a screen shot. It’s really true (click to make it larger).
Is this a trend? Do a lot of people want to profess? Should it become a meme? #profwannabes
Here is more detail about the event that ASU Law School is hosting. Here’s what they say about it:
“This conference is designed for Visiting Assistant Professors, Fellows and others who plan to go on the academic teaching market, but valuable to anyone considering a career as a law professor.”
That made me wonder: How many lawyers may attend? Not visiting assistant or fellows, but just good old practicing lawyers? Who has got that prof bug in them?
Do you want to go?
Shall I go?
Do you want to go together?
Admittedly, my only professorial credentials are these:
- I once owned a corduroy suit with elbow patches (that’s right, in eighth-grade, a full suit, not just a jacket; don’t judge).
- I remember how to holler at people (though I haven’t done it in quite awhile).
If you are intrigued, here is what I propose:
I will contact ASU Law School to ask for a detailed agenda. The day appears to run from 8 to 4 on a Saturday. That, to me, suggests a hidden test; after all, no professor worth his or her salt would ever attend such a thing, all day on a Saturday. That would interfere too radically with their Sodoku competition, or Antiques Roadshow, or something else I cannot even imagine.
So maybe I’ll email ASU to discover the meat of the matter. Hopefully the best content will be front-loaded in the morning. After gleaning what we can, we will decamp (a professor word) to a tasty lunch, on me, maybe in a gastropub, or a rathskellar (which is where I assume professors dine). There, we will eat, drink, declaim and talk about what we learned—and I may write about all of it, including your hopes and aspirations.
Or, I guess, we could attend the whole day. Let’s play it by ear.
Let’s get all tenure-ific together. Write to me at arizona.attorney@azbar.org.
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