Last Wednesday’s Legal Educators’ Colloquium of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution Annual Spring Conference, this year in Las Vegas, featured some wonderful panels on all things “ADR Law Prof.”
Besides reuniting in person with our fantastic community, I also spoke on a panel which focused on using ADR Skills as a law school leader. The panel also featured Michael Colatrella (McGeorge) as moderator, and Deb Eisenberg (Maryland), Lydia Nussbaum (UNLV), and Lauren Newell (Campbell) as fellow panelists.
I focused on ADR Skills I use when interacting with students in my role as Academic Dean. My role involves quite a bit of trouble-shooting and problem-solving, and certainly challenges me to draw on my negotiator, mediator and arbitrator toolbox.
When preparing for the panel a few days earlier, I had taken a long drive, and heard the singer Pink’s [Alicia Moore] song, What About Us? The song is considered a protest song and contains lyrics that talk about how politicians, leaders and the powers that be have disappointed the ordinary people. According to Pink herself, the song is about “all of us that feel unwanted and forgotten and invisible.”
Here are some relevant lyrics:
We are searchlights, we can see in the dark
We are rockets, pointed up at the stars
We are billions of beautiful hearts
And you sold us down the river too far
What about us?
What about all the times you said you had the answers?
What about us?
What about all the broken happy ever afters?
What about us?
What about all the plans that ended in disaster?
What about love? What about trust?
What about us?
We are problems that want to be solved
We are children that need to be loved
We were willing, we came when you called
But man, you fooled us, enough is enough, oh
What about us?
What about all the times you said you had the answers?
What about us?
What about all the broken happy ever afters?
Oh, what about us?
What about all the plans that ended in disaster?
Oh, what about love? What about trust?
What about us?
These lyrics resonated with me, as students often lodge complaints and grievances feeling forgotten and disregarded. In my five years as Academic Dean, I have learned to address these grievances by aiming to transform students from position-based consumers into collaborative and professional partners.
For example, during the first semester of tbe pandemic (spring 2020), students advocated for pass/fail grading policies due to the disruption and literally overnight pivot from in-person to online instruction. Other schools had already announced they were converting to pass/fail policies and the news was widely covered on blogs and Twitter. Our students were concerned that they would be disadvantaged in the employment market, they could lose scholarships, and/or they would not be able to perform to their full ability due to illness, loss and technology struggles. The law school considered the position of the students (“We want P/F grading”), but, more importantly, their underlying interests (to get through a traumatic time; prioritizing mental health; not having a once-a-century global health crisis impact them financially) when ultimately deciding to adopt the P/F policy for our students.
Another example included the mammoth task of developing policies regarding Zoom instruction in semesters following the initial chaos of spring 2020. Some students (and faculty) steadfastly refused to attend classes in person; others did not have adequate access to technology to learn via Zoom or learned (or taught) far better in person. We spent the summer of 2020 considering the views of all of the various stakeholders impacted by any policy: students, IT staff, faculty, the administration, regulators, even parents and grandparents who lived with students who risked bringing COVID home. We developed what I strongly believed to be a true interest-based; multi-stakeholder resolution (optional in-person at first; gradually returning to pre-COVID norms), though ultimately it had to be imposed on the school, like an Arbitrator would.
Finally, during registration when students don’t get the precise schedule they want, some panic and come to see me very upset. My approach has evolved over the years from trying to fix it immediately to more interest-based problem-solving. I probe for the student’s interests and ask: Why do you want to take this class? Can you wait until the beginning of the semester as seats will open up? What other solutions are possible? Have you thought of x alternative to this class? I rarely have a student unhappy with the final resolution.
I am confident that using my ADR Skills to approach student grievances has led to fewer students asking “What about us?” and has made me a more effective (and compassionate) Academic Dean.
