WVU Law School Wants More Room to Learn: $12M Request Part of Master Plan That BOG Will Review

By J. Miles Layton, The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.

Jan. 24–Keith Cooper was struggling to find space for his laptop, notebook and textbooks before class started at the WVU College of Law. “Everybody is crammed up tight next to each other,” said Cooper, 36, as he adjusted to sitting at a desk beside his classmates in a lecture hall filled with more than 60 students. “We need more space. When you use a laptop, there is not enough room for textbooks or anything else.” The College of Law hopes the WVU Board of Governors will approve more than $12 million for renovations to the 33-year-old building. The request is part of the $188 million in capital improvement projects in the WVU Master Plan the board will consider later this year. John Fisher, dean of the WVU College of Law, said until the board approves the money, the architectural designs are still in the planning stages. The Strada architectural firm of Pittsburgh will be handling the initial evaluation of the existing structure and will render preliminary design work. Fisher said renovations could begin within the next few years. “The architects are studying the mechanical structure of the existing building and what options are available for the existing space, and how additional space will be added,” Fisher said. When the law school was moved from Colson Hall on the downtown campus to its current location, in 1974, Fisher said, there were about 250 students. Today, there are more than 400 students. “The way legal education is taught today is significantly different from when this building was designed in 1960s,” said Fisher, who graduated from the College of Law in 1967. Back in 1970s and the early 1980s, Fisher said, students studied the law for three years without computers or much of a need to be prepared to immediately step into a courtroom. Fisher said law school graduates worked closely with experienced professionals for a few years before they were ready to become members of the bar. This mentoring approach has been shifted to law schools. Today, law students are taught intensive legal research and the trial advocacy skills necessary to being a lawyer, Fisher said. Instead of using an ordinary classroom with chalkboards, students are taught to present their client’s case in actual courtrooms inside the law school. “We need more areas in which students can be taught the skills of trial advocacy work and appellate advocacy,” said Fisher, who was taught at the College of Law since 1977. There is only one large courtroom in the current building, which also functions as an auditorium and sometimes as a classroom. When Vanderbilt President Gordon Gee used the courtroom to make a speech last year, amidst controversy over his $1.3 million salary, the courtroom was unavailable to use for teaching or meetings. Robyn Babineau, 22, a law student, said there is not enough classroom space available to teach core courses everyone needs before they graduate. “They need to do something about this now,” she said. “Because there are only two large lecture halls, students may have to wait, possibly until senior year, to take a class like criminal procedure.” Students said that though the building is handicapped accessible, there are limitations, particularly for people who use wheelchairs. Large classrooms are often terraced like theaters. Kristen Andolini, 23, a law student, was in a lecture hall taking notes. Though she can enter the classroom in a wheelchair, it takes a little bit more time to find a seat next to a desk that doesn’t block other students from the main thoroughfare leading into the lecture hall. “It is really difficult to get around and maneuver in some of these classrooms,” Andolini said as she pointed to the steps leading up to the desks. Law professor Kevin Outterson said, “Yeah, we need more space,” before he addressed a group of 63 students in a crowded lecture hall built to hold 70 people. Outterson said future applicants to the law school might judge WVU based on the condition of the building. “Schools we are competing with, like Penn State, have nice facilities,” he said. “If we want to continue to attract quality students, we are going to have do something.” Fisher said many rooms have been converted for new uses: some into office space, some into rooms for clinics that help low-income residents. The law school had to make room for two new offices: alumni relations and the job placement service. “We have cannibalized our storage space to meet our needs,” Fisher said. Jessica Justice, assistant dean for continuing legal education, said the College of Law provides a comprehensive curriculum of seminars that addresses recent developments in the law for 2,000 to 3,000 people a year. “We have up to nine people working in an office built for two people,” Justice said. “The continuing legal education program must have facilities that will enable the College of Law to provide courses in all formats that meet the needs of the practicing bar and the public.” Justice said the audio-visual control room, which is used to handle broadcasts of national speakers invited to the College of Law, is the size of a “walk-in closet.” This equipment is also used by the continuing legal education program to produce Webcast programs, CDs and DVDs for lawyers who cannot attend the live courses. “The audio-visual room is way too small; the different equipment needed for production has outgrown the space available,” Justice said. Joyce McConnell, a law professor and associate dean for academic affairs, said the law school needs more space to remain competitive.

“I think when we moved from Colson Hall to this building over 30 years ago, this building was state of the art, but now we need a new stateof-the-art facility to deliver a top legal education,” she said.

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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