Monday, June 21, 2010

Change of Pace II

Well, it's over - yes, classes have ended at WCL's Turkish Summer Program.
What a great experience. If you have summer programs and are asked to participate - SAY YES!
It's been fun, challenging, different, mind-boggling, and the list of adjectives goes on.
The presenters were well prepared, spoke excellent English, and really gave our students a picture of Turkish Law in general and all of the many business law aspects.
Our side trips to Ankara to visit the World Bank & the Mausoleum of Ataturk were amazing. And then there was Cappadocia and Ephesus - life changing for sure.
More importantly, was the real face time with "students". The faculty in our program resided on campus in the "faculty hotel" near the women's dormitory facilities - yes, no AC, but of course, we survived.
We attended classes, ate lunch; sometimes dinner and cheered the US and many other adopted countries on in World Cup matches with our students. That's when you learn about their dedication to legal education; life-long dreams; and they've never heard of WorldCat.
We had one presenter who was not able to attend and I shared a very detailed power-point with them entitled - Legal Research on Steroids - it's just amazing what they know & what they don't know. 1L legal research & writing courses just can't cover it all and the limited enrollments for the advanced legal research courses make our work extremely difficult - WE NEED TO RESOLVE THIS!! Not sure I have the answer - but the students were amazed at the resources they didn't recognized and how helpful the law library could be to their "comment writing", research for papers, and work they do for faculty.
Of course, my ability to participate was made possible by technology, SKYPE, internt access, and my great staff at the Pence Law Library.
I now have the "hard part" ahead - grading exams (yes, that's what we get paid for!!
Leaving for Hong Kong to do a ABA site visit for the Pepperdine Law School program and then home - yes, just in time for the 4th of July and AALL.
See you there!!

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