Not even surprised any more

Yesterday morning it was announced that Hastings intended to raise the GPA floor for extracurricular activities like internships and externships.  In other words, if you're not doing well in class, we're going to force you to do nothing other than not do well in class.  We'll take away the one thing (good internship experience) that might actually make you marketable when you graduate.

Hastings students became furious and within hours there was an online petition with hundreds of signatures.  By the time of the Hastings party that evening (paid for using our tuition dollars), the Dean of Students had already retracted.  Here's his open letter:

Dear Members of the Hastings Community:

I am writing to address the concerns that many, many of you have expressed about proposals before the Academic Standards Committee to review some of the GPA requirements contained in our Academic Regulations. The main proposal to review these requirements came from me, and I take full responsibility for it. There have been many rumors, some untrue, about what was being proposed, but I will tell you that I did not expect this reaction from the student body.

I have met this afternoon with Dean Newton and Dean Marshall. We all want you to know that we hear and appreciate the concerns you have expressed-not just about the GPA requirements but about Hastings' curve too. We all agree that the proposals currently before the Academic Standards Committee should not go forward at this time, and we will ask the Academic Standards Committee not to consider them. We further agree that there are problems with our grading policies, and that the time has come for Hastings to take a long and thoughtful look at our curve and whether it is disadvantaging our students. We will ask next year's Academic Standards Committee to do this and to consider what other changes, if any, might be appropriate in light of changes in the curve.

I hope you will all appreciate that we do hear your voice and that we have your best interests at heart. As I said at Orientation this fall, you are the reason we are here.

Sincerely,
Bill Dodge
Associate Academic Dean

First of all, with all due respect to Dean Dodge (and respect truly is due), it sure doesn't seem like we're the reason they're here.  This is the second time this year that an announcement was handed down from on high that had a serious negative impact on students, there was a large and immediate hue and cry from the students, and the administration retracted.  (The first time was over the wireless internet, which admittedly is not as important as a GPA floor for extracurricular activities, but the point is there's a pattern here.)

First of all, why does the administration keep making decisions that negatively impact the students?  Dean Dodge says he didn't expect this kind of reaction.  Well, why not?  Lawyers are trained to anticipate other peoples' reactions.  The fact that this keeps happening reflects negatively on the administration's empathy with the students.

But the much more important question is: why wasn't there student involvement much sooner in the process?  Why wasn't a student asked whether we might mind losing our wireless bandwidth?  Why isn't there a student on the board that decides the GPA floor?  I don't mean randomly grabbing a student in the hallway.  I mean having students sit in official positions within the administration to raise red flags for potential problems.  We have a well-organized student government, but it seems like ASUCH is the Iraqi Government to the administration's US Army.  One has no real power and the other calls all the shots (again, without any consideration as to whether the former might have any problems with the latter's decisions).

To Dean Dodge's credit, not only did he honestly listen to the students and accede to our wishes, but he did so incredibly fast.  He's been Dean of Students for less than a year and has managed to walk a delicate line between an administration tha doesn't seem to care, and a student body that's angry about it.

After saying that the administration listened and acceded to our angry demands, how can I turn around and say that the administration doesn't seem to care?  Because I perceive a much larger pattern here.  Beginning with my second year of law school, Hastings decided to undergo a major renovation.  Let me briefly explain: we have three buildings: the 200 Building for miscellaneous purposes like teacher offices, the library, the cafe and food court; the 198 Building for classrooms and a student lounges (some for talking and some for studying); and the Tower, which has living apartments and a gym.  Two years ago, the administration began a $50 million dollar renovation of the 200 building, which means we essentially lost half our campus (not counting student apartments).  The plan was to reopen half of the 200 Building as soon as possible, to lessen the burden on students and faculty.

Then the administration realized that they could save an extra $2 million by keeping the entire 200 building closed for the duration of the project.  This began my perceived pattern of the administration not putting the students first.  Where did that $2 million go?  They're sure not spending it on me; in fact, they raised tuition right after closing half the campus.  It's true, the entire UC system had to raise its tuition on undergrads and grad students.  But Hastings is not an actual UC; we were around long before the University of California, we're not on the UC letterhead, and when I write tuition checks, I don't write them to the UC Regents any more.  Hastings has a "special relationship" with the University of California.  We make our own decisions and we set our own tuition (which, by the way, is phenomenally cheap for a top-tier institution).

The point is, the administration cut services and raised prices at the same time.  In the process they managed to save themselves an extra $2 million.  Meanwhile we have to suffer through a construction project from which we will never benefit.  They've decided to name the newly renovated 200 Building after our old head dean, which seems poetically appropriate.  The renovated building never did anything for me, and neither did she.  In fact, during her tenure, Hastings slipped from #38 on the US News & World Report rankings to #50.  I will graduate from a worse school than the one to which I was admitted.

True, those rankings don't really mean much.  And there are plenty of other, "more meaningful" rankings that place Hastings in the top ten for various factors like academic quality.  And yet, Stanford, Berkeley, and UCLA never have any problem rising to the top.  Meanwhile, I'm paying more money and having less to show for it.  And I can argue that the rankings don't matter until I'm blue in the face, butthey sure matter to prospective employers (especially the ones that give really good salaries).  So as someone who's about to graduate and start looking for a job, I've got to say at this point, few things matter as much as that ranking.
Has the renovation actually affected my ability to perform well academically?  I can say with all honesty that it has.  When the weather is nice, students have one place to eat: the concrete patio in front of the 198 Building (although the administration forgot to put out tables or chairs for the first week of school).  If the weather is bad (and it's been bad a lot lately), there's only one alternative: the Gold Room.  This used to be a quiet study room for students.  Then they had to move all the reference materials in there since they closed the library.  Now there are a bunch of 1L's running around and talking loudly to each other about "did you find the federal codes?"  When it rains, people have to bring their lunches there too.  And, the administration literally bolted open the doors to the study rooms so there's no way at all to get some quiet and privacy.  In fact, around lunch time, it's hard to even find a place to sit.  So yeah, I can honestly say that the renovation project has directly impacted my ability to study at school.

Here's the real bottom line.  UC Hastings has no undergrad.  We have no sports teams.  We do publish several law journals, but they're mostly student-run.  The faculty are not required to publish.  They are here for one reason and one reason only: for the educational benefit of the law students.  And yet, the administration consistently sends the message that the students are the last priority.  It boggles my mind, because I don't understand why they're abandoning their first priority in favor of something else (God knows what).

Someone might argue that this is all a product of the renovation.  The renovation will enable the administration to help future classes even more, it'll increase the cache of the school and attract better faculty, thereby raising our rankings.  The building was built in the 1970's and was long overdue for a renovation.  Any renovation of this scale is a difficult proposition, someone is bound to suffer, but in the long run the school--and especially the students--will be better for it.

But I'm not convinced.  Better teachers and better academic policies will help the students a lot more than new chairs in the food court.  And if you have to do a renovation, try to make it as easy on the students as possible; don't throw new burdens on them if you don't have to.  Show more sensitivity to student needs, and involve students in the decision making process.

And in any case, I had to suffer for two of my three years of law school.  What do I have to show for it?  How is the administration making it up to me?  Or will the class of 2007 simply be disadvantaged relative to everyone else?  How is that acceptable?

J