MEMORANDUM FROM YALE LAW SCHOOL
To: Faculty
From: Yair Listokin, Deputy Dean
Subject: Our Educational Environment
Date: January 24, 2023
Cc: Students, Faculty Administrative Assistants
As a faculty, we strive to enable all our students to achieve their greatest potential. Because our students are diverse in background, personality, and learning style, some approaches help some students thrive while different efforts work best for others. Students’ experiences in our classrooms and their development of a mentoring relationship with one or more faculty members are central to their success here.
During the past several years, the deputy dean has circulated a memorandum on “Our Educational Environment” at the outset of each semester. In addition to summarizing various rules and requirements that apply to faculty teaching and mentoring responsibilities, the memorandum also gathers “best practices” that have emerged from faculty committees, student groups, and other sources. In 2019, the memorandum was updated to reflect the findings and recommendations of the Working Group Report, many of which are incorporated as links below.
I hope the following suggestions stimulate you to think of new ways to foster an environment in which our students can realize their considerable potential. I am eager to hear your ideas and suggestions.
1.) Course Syllabus
Please recognize that your course syllabus is an essential method of communicating norms and expectations to your students. The Working Group compiled a set of syllabus recommendations that you should follow, including the importance of being transparent about the basis of grading, whether classroom notes will be open for use during a course exam, rules regarding attendance and participation, any applicable deadlines for papers or other requirements, and how to schedule an office hours meeting with you. (Please use the online office hours tool here to standardize office hours sign-up across classes.) In addition, you can help to foster a classroom in which students from diverse backgrounds and students with a range of views are treated as full participants by incorporating a diversity and inclusion statement in your syllabus. This statement might explicitly reference our professional and scholarly expectations regarding respectful engagement and dialogue.
I encourage you to post on Canvas your syllabi, lists of required course materials, and your first course assignments as early as possible. Doing that gives students ample opportunity to seek the best purchase options for their course materials and also to prepare for the first class meetings. Please consider making the readings for the first-two weeks of your course available online (including scanned pages of casebooks) to make it easier for students to procure copies at competitive prices. On your syllabus please indicate whether earlier editions of a casebook can be used.
Remember that a syllabus must be actively published once it is uploaded to the course site in Canvas to make it available to students. For instructions on how to publish a syllabus on Canvas, click here. Also, as you know, the Registrar’s Office appreciates receiving a copy of your syllabus via email to Heather Abbott (heather.abbott@yale.edu) to assist the Office in responding to student queries regarding examinations and other course requirements.
The basis of grading in your course deserves special mention. In a given course, both faculty and students must adhere to a clear grading basis that is established in advance. For example, in paper option courses, students must elect to pursue a paper before the examination period begins. Likewise, when a student has chosen to sit for an exam, faculty must use that exam as the basis for evaluation. If a student attempts to plead special circumstances in order to avoid the announced grading basis for a course, the student should be referred to the deputy dean.
If your course is a writing seminar, please consider maintaining an up-to-date statement about your polices and standards for Substantial Papers or Supervised Analytic Writing papers on the Student Scholarship site.
As you know, we have a default policy of recording all courses, except for clinics, and only students with permission of the instructor may have access course recordings. If you are opting not to record your course, or are opting to have all your course recordings available on Canvas, please consider having a statement about recordings on your syllabus.
Finally, please include the following statement on your syllabus: “Students with documented disabilities should register (https://yale-accommodate.symplicity.com/public_accommodation/) with Student Accessibility Services (SAS) to request reasonable disability-related accommodation. Supporting documentation will be required. If approved, SAS will work with the YLS Registrar’s Office to implement accommodations. More information for G&P students can be found online.”
2.) Classroom Excellence
Strive for excellence in your management of the classroom experience. Encourage inclusive and balanced class participation by avoiding dynamics in which only a select few come to dominate classroom discussion. Many students favor a system in which all are required to participate in class. You can facilitate full participation not only by using a cold-call system but also by using panels that give students some notice about how frequently and when they will be on call. Using a randomized call sheet can help assure that all students have an equal chance of being called upon. Relying purely on volunteers can result in having only a few students engaged in conversation with the instructor. That limits the voices heard and the views expressed, which disadvantages all in the class. Even with a panel or cold-call system, however, instructors need to remain attentive to classroom dynamics.
Be attentive to the level of intellectual engagement, respect, and reciprocity that is being shown in your classroom. The Working Group offered concrete advice for ensuring that your classroom is one in which ideas are freely and vigorously exchanged by all. You may want to invoke the Chatham House rule for course discussions, which states that participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speakers, nor that of any other participant, may be revealed. You may also decide to have explicit rules about course recordings.
Consider also the Working Group’s recommendations for creating an inclusive classroom environment for transgender and gender nonconforming students. Most obviously, you should learn students’ correct names and pronouns. You should also adopt a gender-neutral approach when calling on students in class or writing to them; use students’ first names or first and last names instead of using the honorifics Mr. and Ms. If you are keen to stick with formal address in calling on students, consider a gender-neutral approach such as “Judge Alstott” or “Attorney NeJaime.”
Finally, you should consult the Working Group’s recommendations regarding classroom accommodation and modifications, including the testimonials offered by members of ThinkDifferent and the model policies on laptop usage compiled by the Working Group. Even though the Working Group did not make an official recommendation regarding laptop policies and recognized that many teaching faculty have utilized laptop bans to reduce distraction and increase engagement, some faculty are now rethinking their policies in light of what they have learned from ThinkDifferent. Accessibility of course materials also deserves special mention – if you are relying on legacy materials, please work with the administration to improve their accessibility to all students.
3.) Feedback
Students benefit from feedback on their performance and can reasonably expect to receive feedback. Accordingly, it is extremely important that faculty members explicitly invite students to speak with them about their performance both during the course and after it concludes. In particular, one way to assure that students have an opportunity to engage with you is to offer them feedback on their examinations and papers.
For examinations, you might provide: individualized written comments on each examination; an individualized written statement about the student’s performance; individualized meetings about the examination; a comparison between each examination and a printed checklist shared with the students; a memorandum discussing the examination and describing common strengths and problems; making the best sets of answers available as models for other students to see. One of these approaches may suit you, or you may have a different approach. But providing feedback is pedagogically essential as well as highly valued by our students.
In providing feedback, be actively on the alert for previously undiscovered talent. For example, if an examination stands out in quality and contains the germ of a publishable idea, yet you don’t know the student well, you might invite her or him to meet with you. When the two of you talk, you could encourage the student and provide guidance about how he or she might develop a scholarly piece on the topic. If the conversation reveals a common scholarly interest, perhaps you will want to suggest that the student apply for a research assistantship position with you.
4). Research Assistants
Our students highly value the opportunity to work as research assistants for members of the faculty. They can engage in such work only after their first semester in Law School and faculty must adhere to the policy of not hiring first-term students as research assistants. Students receiving course credit in lieu of monetary compensation for research assistant work may only receive credit on a CR/F basis.
To assure that all students have available the full range of such opportunities and that our deep pool of research-assistant talent is well deployed, all student research opportunities should be advertised to all our students except first-termers, and faculty should give all applicants careful consideration. Research assistant positions may be posted through an online hiring platform that faculty and their administrative assistant are strongly encouraged to utilize.
A faculty member offering a research-assistant opportunity and a student considering the position should share a clear, common understanding about the character of the opportunity. The faculty member should be very explicit about the scope of the student’s role in the project, and the student should be sure that he or she understands and accepts that role.