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Schmidt, C; Iijima, A L --- "A Compass for Success: A New Direction for Academic Support Programs" [2006] LegEdDig 31; (2006) 14(4) Legal Education Digest 19

A Compass for Success: A New Direction for Academic Support Programs

C Schmidt & A L Iijima

[2006] LegEdDig 31; (2006) 14(4) Legal Education Digest 19

4 Cardozo Pub L Policy & Ethics J, 2006, pp 1–50

The use of academic support programs (ASPs) has spread rapidly through law schools; today virtually all law schools have such programs. Although law schools have been experimenting with these programs for nearly 25 years, there still is little consensus regarding what type of program is the most effective.

William Mitchell College of Law (WMCL) fundamentally changed its approach to academic support, moving from a voluntary to a mandatory program, from working with ‘non-traditional’ to ‘at-risk’ students, and co-ordinating the teaching of skills with one of the students’ doctrinal courses. Subsequently the authors began an empirical study to determine whether the program had been successful.

Historically, faced with the dual purposes of ASPs (academic and emotional support) and the dual target populations (students of colour and students considered at-risk for academic problems), law schools generally have struck a balance in favour of serving the academic and emotional needs of minority students. Other than this general consensus regarding the overarching purposes of ASPs, however, there has been little agreement regarding the form they should take. Some programs focus on legal writing and research, some even offering a special section of the regular research and writing courses for ASP students. Many offer tutoring on legal doctrine by upper-level students, staff, or professors, or focus on legal analysis, particularly the skills needed for writing essay examinations.

The lack of reliable ASP evaluation historically has been a problem both at the undergraduate and law school levels. At the undergraduate level, most program evaluations are subjective and anecdotal and thus of little scientific value. Because of its vision of embracing diversity, WMCL historically has admitted a number of students who might be considered at risk of having academic problems. Consistent with its goal of helping all students achieve their full academic potential, it began offering Compass, an academic support program for at-risk students. These students are admitted to law school conditional upon their agreement to participate in Compass and to drop one of the doctrinal classes they normally would have taken. Three years later WMCL began the process of determining whether Compass had been successful.

While anecdotal evidence indicated that Compass was effective, the authors assumed that such evidence was unreliable and determined that empirical analyses were necessary to determine whether or not Compass had a positive impact on academic performance. Earned first-year average GPA was selected as the benchmark for evaluating the success of Compass. This determines whether the law school permits the student to continue in law school and may influence the student’s decision whether to continue.

One serious challenge with evaluating ASPs is establishing true scientific rigour. Beyond the ideal laboratory setting for conducting research, the next best method of control involves random assignment to the treatment condition (that is, the ASP) or to a control group that does not receive academic support. The quasi-experimental design used in this evaluation identified naturally occurring control groups from the last school year before Compass and a second control group comprised of students who began law school in the same year as the Compass class being evaluated. Conducting real-world research presents many challenges, especially lack of experimental control.

A strong recommendation for future research would be to design the evaluation before beginning the program. If the evaluation of the program were built into the program itself, then other data could be collected to ensure similarities between the ASP group and the control groups. If the ASP already is in place, then a prospective design would be recommended, collecting data on current and future students.

Furthermore, the very students who most needed academic support seemed the least likely to participate in either the official ASP programs or one-on-one coaching — the students most likely to participate already were receiving average to above average grades.

There seems to be a growing consensus that law school ASPs should focus on honing the students’ analytical skills rather than on tutoring them on legal doctrine. Additionally, a focus on legal doctrine may create dependency problems and may lead to students feeling as if they need tutoring and must depend on someone to help them learn. While a focus on learning legal doctrine should be avoided, it has been found to be very effective to ground the teaching of skills in material the students are covering in their doctrinal classes.

Law schools arguably have good reasons for focusing their ASPs on minority students. First, they may believe that this focus is consistent with their compelling interests in maintaining a diverse student body. In order to achieve their admissions goals, many schools modified their admissions programs to focus on diversity criteria as well as traditional numerical indicators, such as undergraduate grade point averages and scores on the Law School Admissions Test. It was arguable that this de-emphasis of these traditional numerical predictors of academic success was appropriate in part because of cultural barriers which may have impeded the academic success of minority students.

Second, they recognised that minority students were subjected to particular cultural stresses. The programs often are aimed in part to redress past discrimination and the concern that legal education itself may be biased against minority or non-traditional students. Third, they recognised that minority students may be subjected to particular academic challenges. Finally, providing such a focus may signal the school’s support of minority students.

Even if constitutional, however, ASPs focused entirely, or even in large part, on minority students are likely to be somewhat counter-productive. They may unnecessarily stigmatise minority students and may create stereotype threats. Moreover, they may create resentment and backlash from white students, who may view the programs as fundamentally unfair.

Law students experience a broad range of problems, which may include both academic and non-academic problems. The non-academic problems may include clinical levels of psychological distress as well as financial pressures, family or relationship problems, conflicting cultural values, social isolation, self-doubt and illness. Minority students may be in particular need of non-academic support. Law school communities do not reflect our society’s diversity.

The ASP goal of helping law students with academic problems may be inconsistent with its goal of helping with non-academic problems. Indeed, if the goal of legal academic support programs is simply to ‘retool’ students so that they ‘fit’ within the confines of what traditional legal academia deems to be important and valid, it may exacerbate the very exclusion that many people of colour and other marginalised groups feel from law school and the law itself.

There is a solution to the problems surrounding the dual nature of ASPs, simple in its conception, but more demanding in its implementation. Law schools need only assess and address the needs of all the students, whether the needs are academic, social or emotional in nature, and regardless of the students’ race or culture.

In conclusion, this evaluation of the Compass program shows that these students earned higher grades than their counterparts in the matched control group from the last year prior to implementing Compass. Its effectiveness indicates that law school ASPs should be mandatory, serve students actually at risk of academic problems and work in conjunction with at least one doctrinal course. Together with programs that address the non-academic needs of students, such ASPs would tell students that we care about them.


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