Lincoln Memorial University Duncan School of Law v. American Bar Association (TV1)

Filing 21

NOTICE by American Bar Association re 19 Response in Opposition to Motion for Temporary Restraining Order (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit ABA's Standards for Approval, # 2 Exhibit ABA's Rules of Procedure for Approval, # 3 Exhibit ABA's internal operating practices, # 4 Exhibit December 20, 2011 letter, # 5 Exhibit December 2, 2011 transcript, # 6 Exhibit October 12, 2011 letter and recommendation, # 7 Exhibit September 29, 2011 transcript, # 8 Exhibit Response to Site Report, # 9 Exhibit Site Report and letter, # 10 Exhibit January 2, 2011 letter, # 11 Exhibit July 8, 2010 letter, # 12 Exhibit April 27, 2009 letter, # 13 Exhibit February 24, 2009 letter, # 14 Exhibit Feasibility study, # 15 Exhibit Cost of Attendance, # 16 Exhibit Nashville School of Law: About the School, # 17 Exhibit Belmont University Accreditation Process, # 18 Exhibit LSAC Volume Summary, # 19 Exhibit 2011-2012 Law School Admission Reference Manual Excerpt, # 20 Exhibit UTK Tuition and Fees, # 21 Exhibit TBLE Basic Requirements, # 22 Exhibit TN Supreme Court Rule 7, # 23 Exhibit SACS-COC- About the Commission, # 24 Exhibit SACS-COC Principles of Accreditation, # 25 Exhibit Excerpt from DSOL self-study, # 26 Exhibit DSOL-A Note on Accreditation, # 27 Exhibit WV Rules for Admission)(Thompson, Jeffrey)

AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION
COUNCIL MEETING

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2011
RECOMMENDATION REGARDING APPLICATION
FOR PROVISIONAL ABA APPROVAL
LINCOLN MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY

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BEFORE:

1
2
3 CHAIR:

Dean John O'Brien

4 VICE-CHAIR:

Kent Syverud

5 MEMBERS:

Jane Aiken

6

Honorable Rebecca White Berch

7

Diane F. Bosse, Esq.

8

General Leo A. Brooks

9

Paulette Brown

10

Edwin J. Butterfoss

11

Michael J. Davis

12

Honorable Christine M. Durham

13

Tracy Allen Giles, Esq.

14

Chuck Goldner

15

Joan S. Howland

16

Dennis O. Lynch

17

Honorable Ruth V. McGregor

18

Gregory G. Murphy

19

Honorable Solomon Oliver, Jr.

20

Maureen O'Rourke

21

Raymond C. Pierce

22

Erika Robinson

23

Pauline A. Schneider, Esq.

24

Edward N. Tucker

25

Honorable Charles R. Wilson

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ASSOCIATE

2

GENERAL COUNSEL:

3

CONSULTANT:

4

ASSISTANT CONSULTANT:

Scott Norberg

5

EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT:

Page 3

Cathy A. Schrage

Stephanie Giggets, Esq.

Hulett H. Askew

6
7
8 LINCOLN MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY REPRESENTATIVES
9 APPEARING:
10

Dean Sydney Beckman

11

Dr. James Dawson

12

Dr. Clayton Hess

13

Associate Dean Gordon Russell

14

Associate dean April Meldrum

15

Associate Dean Terence Cook

16

Professor Jonathan Marcantel

17

Professor Melanie Reid

18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25

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7

AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION

8

COUNCIL MEETING

9

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2011

10
11
12

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS of the American

13 Bar Association Council Meeting held at the Ritz14 Carlton San Juan, 6961 Avenue of the Governors, Isla
15 Verda, Carolina, Puerto Rico, before Valerie Allard,
16 a Certified Court Reporter.
17
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25

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AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION

2

COUNCIL MEETING

3

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2011

4

Page 5

11:15 A.M.

5
DEAN O'BRIEN:

6

If I could begin by

7 apologizing to you and your colleagues for being
8 late.

We didn't anticipate the length of the

9 meeting.

You're handing out some material.

Is this

10 material that we've been previously given?
11

DEAN BECKMAN:

Yes; Chairman O'Brien,

12 what's being handed out are two separate documents.
13 Document one is a copy of the brief that was
14 submitted electronically to each member through Mr.
15 Askew.

The second documents are color copies of

16 photographs that were presented into evidence at the
17 Committee Hearing in large form. Those were also
18 tendered through Mr. Askew electronically and those
19 are copies of those.
20

DEAN O'BRIEN:

I appreciate that. And so I

21 was trying to determine if there was new information
22 in the packet?
23

DEAN BECKMAN:

There's not, sir.

24

DEAN O'BRIEN:

I appreciate it.

25

As you know, this is a hearing to consider

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1 the application of the Duncan School of Law at
2 Lincoln Memorial University Provisional Approval.
3 The Accreditation Committee considered this matter
4 at its September meeting and have recommended that
5 the Council not grant approval.
6

Dean, if you would begin by introducing

7 yourself and your colleagues and then we'll go
8 around and do the same thing before we get started.
9
10

DEAN BECKMAN:

Sure, I'd be happy to.

Members of the Council, to my far right is

11 Dr. Clayton Hess.

He is Lincoln Memorial

12 University's Vice President for Academic Affairs; to
13 his immediate left and my right is Dr. Jim Dawson.
14 He's the President of Lincoln Memorial University.
15 I'm Syd Beckman.
16 of Law.

I'm the Dean of the Duncan School

To my left is Jonathan Marcantel,

17 Professor, who's been involved with us since with
18 very beginning; to his left my Associate Dean for
19 Academics, April Meldrum; to her left, Terence Cook,
20 who is our Director of Admissions; and Professor
21 Melanie Reid, a professor at Duncan School of Law.
22

DEAN O'BRIEN:

Welcome one and all. Chief

23 Justice?
24

CHIEF JUSTICE BERCH:

I'm Rebecca Berch,

25 Chief Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court.

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ASSOCIATE DEAN BUTTERFOSS:

2 Butterfoss.

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I'm Ed

I'm on the faculty at Hamlin University

3 School of Law.
4

THE HONORABLE WILSON:

I'm Charles Wilson.

5 I'm a judge on the United States Court of Appeals
6 for the 11th Circuit.
7

ASSOCIATE DEAN HOWLAND:

Joan Howland; I'm

8 on the faculty of the University of Minnesota Law
9 School.
10

THE HONORABLE OLIVER:

I'm Solomon Oliver,

11 Chief Judge of the United States District Court in
12 the Northern District of Ohio.
13

MS. ROBINSON:

Erika Robinson, Law Student

14 Division Representative, University of South
15 Carolina.
16

MS. BROWN:

Paulette Brown, private

17 practice, representative to the Council, in Madison,
18 New Jersey.
19

THE HONORABLE MCGREGOR:

Ruth McGregor,

20 retired, House of Delegates, Phoenix, Arizona.
21

PROFESSOR DAVIS:

Mike Davis, law faculty

22 member of the University of Kansas.
23

MR. MURPHY:

Greg Murphy; I'm a practicing

24 lawyer.
25

MS. SCHRAGE:

Cathy Schrage, ABA staff.

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MR. GOLDNER:

1

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Chuck Goldner; I'm Vice

2 Chair of the Accreditation Committee.
MS. BOSSE:

3

Chair of the Accreditation

4 Committee.
5

DEAN O'BRIEN:

John O'Brien, Chair of the

6 Council, Dean at New England Law/Boston.
7

MR. ASKEW:

8

DEAN SYVERUD:

Bucky Askew, ABA staff.
Kent Syverud, Vice Chair of

9 the Council and Dean at Washington University School
10 of Law, Saint Louis.
11

MR. NORBERG:

Scott Norberg, ABA staff.

12

MS. GIGGETS:

Stephanie Giggets, Associate

13 General Counsel at the ABA.
14
15 member.
16

MR. TUCKER:

Ed Tucker; I'm a public

I'm an accountant from Baltimore.
MR. BROOKS:

I'm Leo Brooks and I'm a

17 public member.
18

THE HONORABLE DURHAM:

Christine Durham,

19 the Chief Justice in the state of Utah and past
20 Chair of the Council.
21

PROFESSOR AIKEN:

Jane Aiken, Georgetown

22 Law School.
23

MS. SCHNEIDER:

Pauline Schneider, private

24 practice, near Washington, DC, and Section Delegate
25 to the House.

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DEAN PIERCE:

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Raymond Pierce, Dean of the

2 law school at North Carolina Central.
DEAN LYNCH:

3

Dennis Lynch, Dean at the

4 University of Miami Law School.
MR. GILES:

5

Tracy Giles, in private

6 practice in Virginia.
DEAN O'ROURKE:

7

Maureen O'Rourke, Dean at

8 Boston University.
9

MR. BAMBRINK:

Carl Bambrink, ABA staff.

10

DEAN O'BRIEN:

We should mention also at

11 the start that the acoustics in here are quite poor;
12 so when you're speaking, if you would all just keep
13 that in mind and help us out by speaking up.
14

Dean, I believe the staff has informed you

15 that you are allotted 15 minutes between closing and
16 opening, and you can allocate that in any way you
17 wish.

Ms. Schrage is our timekeeper and you're

18 welcome to begin.
19

DEAN BECKMAN:

I'll reserve any remaining

20 time for the end, and Dr. Dawson will begin our
21 comments.
22

DR. DAWSON:

Thank you.

Lincoln Memorial

23 University was established in 1897 as a living
24 memorial to Abraham Lincoln.

It has a distinguished

25 history of providing education, including graduate

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1 and professional programs, to one of the most
2 disadvantaged socioeconomic populations in America,
3 Southern Appalachia.
4

We are proud of our worthy mission and the

5 ability we have demonstrated to deliver this quality
6 experience while ensuring fiscal stability.

Our

7 budget surpluses are documented in the audit reports
8 provided for you.

The University's graduate and

9 professional students consistently score in the top
10 core title of their peers on board examinations in
11 their respective fields.
12

As President, I insist that our

13 professional schools are successful because we plan
14 them meticulously and provide for them the financial
15 support necessary to achieve their goals. LMU and
16 the law school are -- in the words of the ABA Site
17 Team -- "At the forefront of outcome based and
18 assessment driven legal education using methods of
19 evaluation that, in the near future, will likely
20 become an integral part of ABA standards."
21

As President, I can unequivocally assure

22 you that the Duncan School of Law is, and will
23 forever be, operated with the academic rigor and
24 financial support required to meet and exceed the
25 highest standards.

These facts have been verified

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1 by the Southern Associations of Schools Commission
2 on Colleges, the Tennessee Board of Law Examiners,
3 not to mention your own Site evaluation team.
DEAN BECKMAN:

4

Mr. Chairman and Members of

5 the Council, I hereby tender Exhibits 1 through 18
6 for the record.
7 reporter.

They're down here with the court

They were all previously provided to the

8 ABA, all former documents.
9

From the moment that LMU considered

10 opening a law school to serve the people of
11

Appalachia, every decision has been focused on

12 two things:

Ensuring a quality legal education by

13 exceeding compliance with ABA standards, and serving
14 our institutional mission.
15

The Accreditation Committee's

16 recommendation against provisional approval is
17 premised on four conclusions
18 findings of fact.

in their corresponding

Those conclusions in the

19 corresponding findings of fact, however, lack
20 factual support in the record and are inconsistent
21 with findings by experienced Site teams from both
22 the ABA and the Southern Association of Colleges and
23 Schools, thus the conclusions and their supporting
24 findings of fact are not entitled to deference.
25

Furthermore, an objective review of the

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1 record indicates the law school has proven that it
2 is in substantial compliance with each of the
3 standards with a reliable plan for bringing the
4 school into full compliance within three years.
5

As to Conclusion A, the Committee found we

6 are not in compliance with Standard 203, related to
7 strategic planning and assessment.

This conclusion

8 is premised on six factual findings encompassing two
9 primary areas of concern.

First, the Committee

10 found that we did not review the feasibility study,
11 and, second, they found that we have not addressed
12 diminished LSAT takers and decreased enrollment
13 projections in our strategic planning.
14

As to the first finding, the phrase

15 "feasibility study" does not exist in Standard 203;
16 rather the phrase only exists in Rule and Procedure
17 4B, thus requirements regarding feasibility studies
18 must exist, if at all, in Rule 4B.

The rule

19 requires that a school produce one feasibility
20 study.

That requirement is consistent with the

21 purpose of a feasibility study -- to ensure that an
22 institution has considered all factors pertinent to
23 its consideration of opening a law school.
24 are found in Exhibits 10 and 11.

These

This evidence is

25 sufficient to demonstrate the school's compliance

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1 with Rule 4B.
2

In terms of the second factual finding

3 that the school failed to sufficiently demonstrate a
4 strategic planning process because we did not
5 account for reduced LSAT takers and thus reduced
6 admissions.

The findings, even if true, are

7 irrelevant to whether we comply with Rule 203.
8 Furthermore -- however the findings are not
9 supported by the record.
10

First, the Committee's conclusion is

11 inconsistent with the two findings of two other
12 accrediting bodies, one of which is recognized the
13 U.S. Department of Education; second, the conclusion
14 is inconsistent with the findings of ABA Site Team
15 which found the DSOL has, "Regularly identified
16 specific goals for improving itself, identified the
17 means to achieve these goals, assesses the success
18 in realizing these goals by assessing its activities
19 daily, weekly, monthly, and annually, and uses this
20 information to re-examine and revise its means and
21 goals," and further found, "a culture of assessment
22 at every level -- indeed, every aspect of the law
23 school operation."
24

Furthermore, our burden to demonstrate

25 compliance with 203 is not as broad as the Committee

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1 suggests; that is, the Committee believes the DSOL
2 was charged with assessing the number of LSAT
3 takers, presumably repeatedly, to demonstrate an
4 effective strategic planning process.

No such

5 requirement exists either explicitly or implicitly
6 within the language of the Standard; rather, the
7 Standard requires that the school demonstrate it
8 identifies established goals, identifies means to
9 achieve those goals, and periodically assesses and
10 evaluates those goals. We have met this burden.
11

We have completed two strategic plans.

12 Evidence of our strategic planning can be found in
13 Exhibit 3 at Tab 73 and Exhibit 9, Tab 35. Each of
14 our strategic plans delineates specific goals, means
15 to achieve those goals, an assessment of the goals,
16 and a process for remediating unrealized goals.
17 More specifically, each strategic plan includes
18 goals related to admissions and marketing to
19 increase the school's admission profile.
20

Furthermore, in addition to the strategic

21 plans themselves, we have presented evidence that
22 proves we have continued to assess enrollment
23 figures in our strategic planning process -24 specifically referring to the budget in Exhibit 9,
25 Tabs 7 and 8.

The evidence indicates that LMU and

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1 DSOL have continued to adjust the law school's
2 enrollment and revenue projections in a timely and
3 effective manner; thus, even assuming Standard 203
4 requires us to prove we have addressed decreased
5 enrollment and admissions in our strategic planning
6 process, we have introduced sufficient evidence to
7 demonstrate that we have complied with the Standard.
8

As to Conclusion B, the Committee

9 concluded that we do not comply with Standard 303 or
10 Interpretation 303-3 based on the findings that the
11 director of academic success lacks experience, the
12 entrance credentials of entering cohorts have
13 declined, and the Academic Standards Committee
14 permitted the readmission of six previously
15 disqualified students.
16

The first finding implies that the

17 director of academic success is unqualified because
18 he lacks experience as a director.

While he lacks

19 experience as a director, the record is replete with
20 evidence that he is qualified, including clerking
21 for a judge, four years of teaching, a juris doctor,
22 and a master of library science.
23

Interpretation 303 requires that a school

24 possess sufficient academic support services to
25 provide each student an opportunity to succeed. The

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1 inquiry is whether the school provides necessary
2 services.

In that regard, we have introduced

3 sufficient evidence into the record to demonstrate
4 the ASP program is extensive in its breadth, focused
5 on individual students, and tied to doctrinal
6 courses to ensure maximum efficacy.
7

For instance, as reflected in Exhibit 1,

8 Tab 7, the school provides mandatory ASP components
9 for all students, including a prematriculation
10 Bridge Week and a three-hour per week ASP class in
11 their first semester.

Students thereafter are

12 required to participate in formal ASP courses free
13 of charge, if their grades identify them as at-risk.
14 Academic tutoring and counseling are also
15 individually offered to any student at any time.
16

As to the second finding, that the

17 entrance credentials of entering cohorts has
18 declined; as noted in the brief, that finding is
19 inaccurate.

However, even if accepted without more,

20 that evidence is irrelevant to whether we comply
21 with Standard 303.

Standard 303 says nothing about

22 entrance credentials; to the contrary, the Standard
23 addresses what a school must do to support students
24 once they're admitted, thus, the Committee's
25 reliance on entrance credentials as a means of

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In that

2 regard, as stated a moment ago, we have a formal,
3 comprehensive tailored ASP program.
4

Furthermore, we have a aggressive academic

5 standards and attrition policies. Specifically, the
6 evidence in Exhibit 1 at Tab 7, indicates that DSOL
7 reviews each student's performance each semester to
8 determine whether each student is performing in
9 accordance with our academic standards.
10

In the event a student's cumulative GPA

11 declines below 1.25, the student is automatically
12 withdrawn.

In the event the student's cumulative

13 GPA is above a 1.25 but below a 2.0, the student is
14 placed on academic probation. These standards,
15 combined with our strong mandatory curve, are
16 sufficient to demonstrate the law school does not
17 inculcate false hope or continue the enrollment of
18 students who are not capable of succeeding.
19

As to the final finding under Conclusion

20 B, that we have admitted six previously disqualified
21 students.

The factual finding does not support the

22 Committee's conclusion, that is, the mere fact that
23 the DSOL has readmitted six students does not,
24 without more, provide any basis for assessing
25 whether the DSOL has sound academic standards or

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1 continues the enrollment of students who are
2 incapable of successfully completing the academic
3 program; rather, the analysis should be whether the
4 school has appropriate readmission policies and
5 applied those policies.
6

In that regard, our readmission policies

7 are consistent with the readmission policies of
8 other ABA accredited schools. Specifically,
9 determinations are made by the Academic Standards
10 Committee, a committee composed of faculty members.
11 To readmit a student the Committee must find, one,
12 extraordinary circumstances contributed to the
13 student's inability to meet the academic
14 requirements of the school.
15

Two, the student's failure to meet the

16 standards for continuing his or her studies does not
17 indicate a lack of capacity to complete the program
18 of study and, in fact, the student possesses that
19 capacity.
20

And, three, the circumstance resulting in

21 a student's disqualification have been remedied or
22 no longer exist.

In each of the six readmission's

23 cases, the Academic Standards Committee made
24 positive specific findings of fact for each student
25 regarding each of those criteria.

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As to Conclusion C, the Committee found

2 the school does not comply with Standard 501,
3 asserting it does not maintain sound admissions
4 policies.

However, this conclusion is based

5 exclusively upon the academic credentials and
6 standardized test scores of matriculants and the
7 purported relationship between LSAT scores and
8 academically dismissed students.
9

The Committee's criticism implies that we

10 should not have admitted students reporting LSAT
11 scores at or below 148.

While it is true that most

12 of our academically dismissed students had an LSAT
13 at or below 148; it's also true, as documents
14 submitted to the Committee during our hearing
15 indicate, that the vast majority of students
16 admitted with an LSAT score below 148 are in good
17 academic standing and have evinced the capacity to
18 succeed in law school.
19

Additionally, as referenced in Exhibit 1,

20 pages 195 through 196, a correlation report
21 generated by the LSAC, reveals that none of the
22 students academically dismissed had a predicted
23 first-year average of below a 2.0.

Furthermore, as

24 recommended by the LSAC cautionary policies, LSAT
25 scores are only one factor in our admission process.

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In that vein we consider, and by federal

2 regulation are permitted to consider our mission
3 when reviewing applicants.
4 other factors.

We also review a host of

Nevertheless, if the Committee and

5 this Council believe that LSAT scores below 148 are
6 appropriate benchmark, there are eight fully
7 accredited law schools with scores that do not meet
8 that benchmark and, in some cases, are well below
9 148.

Clearly, it would be arbitrary and capricious

10 for this Council to adopt the Committee's
11 recommendation that the DSOL is not in compliance
12 based upon LSAT scores.

Finally, a strict LSAT

13 cutoff score would thwart our mission.
14

Regarding Conclusion D, the Committee

15 found that we are not in compliance with Standard
16 511, asserting we have failed to demonstrate that
17 our Career Services Department is effective in
18 assisting students to make sound career choices;
19 this finding is without merit.
20

In Finding 67, the Committee found that

21 our Career Services Department conducts programs to
22 improve student interviewing and application skills,
23 post employment openings, and is accessible to
24 students.

In addition to these functions, the ABA

25 Site Team found that Career Services attended

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1 various legal functions, obtained student
2 internships -- including two Tennessee Supreme
3 Supreme Court internships -- and posted job
4 opportunities.
5

Finally, and perhaps most convincingly,

6 the ABA Site Team found, "The large contingent of
7 students that attended the scheduled Team Meeting
8 with students was uniformly positive in its
9 assessment of the adequacy of such student
10 services."

Nevertheless, it appears the Committee

11 believes that we do not comply with Standard 511 on
12 the basis that, at that time, we only employed one
13 person in our Career Services Department.

That

14 position is not supported in the record.
15

First, as the Committee found in Finding

16 67, we had plans to hire an additional person for
17 that department.

I'm pleased to report that has

18 occurred; but even without the additional person,
19 the Committee appears to have misunderstood the
20 process by which we deliver career counseling to our
21 students.

Like academic counseling, career

22 counseling is not exclusively provided by one person
23 or even one department at the law school.
24

While career services facilitates efforts

25 to ensure our students are in a position to make

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1 sound career choices, career counseling also comes
2 from each student's faculty advisor, virtually all
3 of whom have been practicing attorneys.

That one-

4 on-one role that each advisor plays in shaping the
5 career planning and decision-making in the lives of
6 students seems to have been overlooked by the
7 Committee as they focused solely on the career
8 services director.
9

In conclusion, for the foregoing reasons

10 and based upon the information in the brief and
11 Exhibits 1 through 18, we respectfully request that
12 the Council reject the Accreditation Committee's
13 recommendation and grant provisional accreditation.
14

DEAN O'BRIEN:

15 you, Dr. Dawson.

Thank you, Dean, and thank

We'll now open the floor to the

16 Council for questions.
17

Yes, Maureen.

18

DEAN O'ROURKE:

I wonder if you could

19 expand on how you've adjusted the strategic plan in
20 light of market conditions?

I understand that

21 you've adjusted the budget and the University has
22 made commitments with respect to finances based on
23 what enrollment looks like it's going to do.
24

But what I wasn't clear on was how you've

25 adjusted the strategic plan in light of trends in

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1 the economy, trends in the legal profession, and
2 trends in application numbers and how that connects
3 up with the mission of the school.

In particular,

4 it wasn't clear to me how, if students are coming
5 out with 80 to 100,000 dollars in debt, that they
6 would actually be able to be employed in the way
7 that you would hope that they would be employed.

So

8 that was one question, the adjustment of the
9 strategic plan to the realities of the economy apart
10 from simply adjustment of the budget.
11

And the second though, I'll connect up to

12 the budget, which is the law school, the extent to
13 which the University has committed its financial
14 support.

What I think I'm struggling with is how we

15 can be confident of that given such shifting sands
16 in the economy.

So I wondered if you could say a

17 word about endowment or how you can be confident
18 knowing that at the undergraduate level there are
19 demographic shifts coming so there are fewer
20 students going to college, you know, how you can be
21 confident that with all the changing sands you can
22 make this kind of un-dollar quantified commitment to
23 the law school over a period of time, or if there
24 isn't one.
25

DEAN BECKMAN:

Sure.

There's a number of

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1 factors to your question, so I'll try to address
2 each of them and just let me know if I do not.

Let

3 me start sort of at the macro level with regard to
4 the University and its commitment, if I may, and
5 then Dr. Dawson may have additional comments with
6 regard to that.
7

Our University is in a unique position.

8 Our University,

from certainly the time that I've

9 been there and as far as I'm aware in its history,
10 has actually never relied on its endowment for
11 operating costs; that's a fairly unique position.
12 Instead, the University has created a situation
13 where we have, in many respects, adopted a business
14 model and from that, we're very careful of our
15 costs, we're very thoughtful in the way we spend our
16 money.

And our planning has proven that, in fact,

17 that has beared true as we have been financially
18 sound over the years and continue to do so.
19

What we submitted to the Committee, at

20 that time, was unaudited financials for this last
21 year.

At the time, we didn't have audited

22 financials.

We have them.

We're willing to tender

23 them, but I understand that's new information.

But

24 that showed, I believe an eleven-and-a-half million
25 dollar -- surplus isn't the right word, but I'm not

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1 an accountant so I don't want to use the wrong word
2 -- it actually turned out to be much higher than
3 that, by $2 million.

So we're thoughtful in our

4 costs in and the way we....
5

We've had incredible growth, incredible

6 success in our professional level programs.

And in

7 doing so, we do planning in different components.
8 We not only plan for the next year, but we are
9 always doing a moving five-year plan. So that
10 planning ties together and includes the net
11 operating losses for the law school as part of
12 University.
13
14 whole.

The University treats each component as a
In other words, we're not an island onto

15 ourselves.

And so as a result, all of that goes

16 into our strategic plan; the law school's strategic
17 plan dovetails with the University's strategic plan,
18 and it does so at the financial level and other
19 levels too.

But your question is financial, so I'll

20 focus on that.
21

So in doing so, we're always looking,

22 well, if these are going to be the losses -- and you
23 do projections, because a pro forma is a projection.
24 And if we look at historical information, when the
25 economy's done poorly, what we know is that LSAT

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Nobody

2 expected the decrease, and yet we all have to impact
3 -- our University's impacted by that.
4 plan based on that.
5

So we have to

So we do that.

We looked at different models in our plan.

6 We do that at the institutional level, and we do
7 that at the law school level all the while thinking,
8 well, what if we get two students, what if we get
9 ten students, what if we get -- we consider all of
10 those models.

And we make sure that the funds are

11 there to support the law school and the institution
12 as a whole because, obviously, their concerns are
13 macro and my concerns are more towards the law
14 school, although I, obviously, have the obligation
15 to the entire institution.
16

With that said, let me sort of get into

17 the meat, the other part of your question.
18

DEAN O'ROURKE:

So let me just interrupt

19 for a second.
20

DEAN BECKMAN:

21

DEAN O'ROURKE:

Sure.
So the bottom line then

22 would be that you are tuition and fees driven on the
23 revenue side and

you try to control costs on the

24 expense side?
25

DEAN BECKMAN:

I believe that's accurate.

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So then the second

2 question would be, one of the things that was
3 noticeable was the percentage of increases that
4 you've had in tuition and fees that don't appear, to
5 me at least, to be sustainable over time.
6

DR. HESS:

Just to comment on that.

7 There's a very integrated planning budget and
8 assessment process for the units of the institution
9 and the overall institution.

Specifically for the

10 law school, we have engaged a professional
11 recoupement fund.
12

There was evidence in the record that we

13 have brought on a new dean of admissions. We've
14 developed a strategic plan for marketing, a
15 strategic plan for admissions.

We have

16 significantly advanced the number of applications
17 early this year over last year relative to the
18 University.

All sectors of the University involved

19 in University strategic planning have the law
20 school's support on their agenda for the next five
21 years.
22

That includes our fund raising efforts.
There are specific fund raising efforts

23 that will be initiated for the law school. We are
24 very successful in fund raising.

We are up in the

25 amount of funds that are raised over last year.

All

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1 indications are that we are going to continue to
2 grow.

We have -- the increases in tuition are

3 sometimes related to averages and to the overall
4 programs being introduced.
5

The University has introduced extremely

6 advances professional degree programs in medicine,
7 nurse anesthesiology, nurse family practitioner.
8 Some of these programs have much higher tuition
9 rates.

We have a doctorate in education.

10 not high compared to our competitors.

They are

We are

11 substantially below the national average in terms of
12 our tuition.

Our law school is one of the least

13 expensive law schools in the country.
14

Once we are -- if and when we are

15 accredited, we have access to student recruitment we
16 don't have now through LSAT.

Those are not

17 available to schools that are not accredited.
18 Students much opt to be in that pool of students
19 that we have access to.

There are a lot of things

20 that weigh very heavily in our favor.

We have

21 carefully looked at our projections.
22

Also, I would point out that law school is

23 not an island; it's part of the University.

The

24 University plans for other programs not only to
25 support the law school, but to grow as a result of

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When we introduced our medical

2 school, we saw well over a hundred percent increase
3 in all our science enrolments.

Introducing the law

4 school, we are seeing increases in our humanities
5 enrollments.

We anticipate that that revenue coming

6 to the University can be used to support the law
7 school. There is a lot of evidence in the record
8 that we have very carefully planned for this law
9 school.
10

DR. BECKMAN:

You had mentioned something

11 about something doesn't appear sustainable, and I'm
12 not sure we -- what is it that you feel is not
13 sustainable?
14

DEAN O'ROURKE:

Well, my question was

15 whether the University's commitment to the law
16 school -17

THE HONORABLE DURHAM:

Would you speak up?

18 We've having trouble hearing you.
19

DEAN O'ROURKE:

The second question was

20 whether you had made adjustments to your mission in
21 light of the financial pressures that you could
22 face?
23

DEAN BECKMAN:

24 our mission.

Oh, no, we've not adjusted

Our mission remains solid. What we've

25 done is, we've certainly looked at and as part of

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1 our planning process, have adopted some initiatives
2 -- and these are in the early stages -- on what we
3 can do to impact students who really impact our
4 mission after they graduate, such as an initiative
5 where we pay part of their debt over the first year
6 or two.

And we're looking at different models.

One

7 model we're looking at is one year; another model
8 we're looking at, maybe multiple years.

That's one

9 initiative that we're looking at.
10

Now, to be fair, this is part of our

11 strategic planning process, so there's a lot of
12 things that go into that -- the funding of it, how
13 it all ties together -- but that's one of the
14 initiatives that we have looked at.

We've looked --

15 of course, another thing that is important is
16 discount rate.
17 rate.

And we've looked at our discount

We've expanded our discount rate.

There's

18 evidence in the record where we were and what we can
19 come to.
20

We're continuing to expand out discount

21 rate in a couple of different of ways -- not just
22 credential based, but need based.
23 that's important.

And I think

I think those distinctions are

24 important because you may have, again, individuals
25 with low entrance credentials that can be highly

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1 successful in law school; but yet you have the need
2 and if they fit our mission, I've got to look at the
3 people.
4

We have a lot of people in the Appalachian

5 region that -- I have to backup.

It's hard to

6 really understand that region until you live there.
7 And I'm guilty.

I was new to East Tennessee and the

8 Appalachian region.

And, you know, these aren't my

9 words but a good friend said, these are mountain
10 people.
11

And sometimes they are mountain people.
What's interesting is how these people

12 perform versus other groups that we typically study,
13 like minorities.

They may not be minority, but

14 they're mountain people and sometimes their
15 performance is similar.

And you see that, and

16 they're people that are dedicated.

We have a lot of

17 first generation college students.

I was one, but I

18 never really understood it until I teach them, and
19 how it impacts them day to day.

So we try to --

20 we're constantly assessing and reassessing what we
21 do and how we can improve things for our students.
22

One of the things that we did, and Dr.

23 Hess mentioned it and it's in the record, and that
24 is that we have one of the lowest private school
25 tuitions in the country.

And we've made a constant

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1 effort to be cognizant of what our tuition cost is.
2 We're fortunate in that we have a facility that
3 costs us a dollar a year.

I know that a lot of

4 schools don't have that, that's fortunate, we're
5 lucky and we can pass that on.

I think it's in the

6 record; it's certainly in the public news that it
7 was about two years ago, LMU froze tuition across
8 the board -- was it two years ago, Dr. Dawson?
9
10

DR. DAWSON:

Two years, yes.

DEAN BECKMAN:

11 tuition across the board.

Two years ago we froze
Again, that comes from an

12 institutional review and assessment of what impacts
13 people.

Tuition was going up, you know, the cost of

14 living goes up.

You've got to be cognizant of that.

15 But how can we impact this -- every time you add a
16 dollar to tuition, our students are impacted.
17
18 that.

We've done some other things to impact
We've looked at what starting salaries are

19 for folks in our part of Tennessee, in Chattanooga
20 which is south and Nashville which is west, in these
21 other areas.

And if you look at when a student

22 comes out and they have $100,000 in debt or $80,000
23 in debt, looking at that number -- and I'll be
24 honest with you -- looking at that number is
25 meaningless.

What's an important number is, what do

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1 they pay a month, because that's how it impacts
2 them.

Can they make enough money to service that

3 debt on a monthly basis?
4 question.
5
6 school.

Can they; yes.
I never met you all.

I went through law

I put myself through, paid all that. I

7 understand that debt.
8 I get it.

And that's really the

I went to a private school.

You've got to be able to service that

9 debt every single month.

I think what's lost is,

10 you know, we're all cognizant of the press.

We're

11 all cognizant of the fact that lawyers are getting
12 trampled upon every day in the news and how it's
13 going to impact them.
14

We have a law student here who may wonder,

15 where is my career going to be and how is this going
16 to impact me.

But the neat thing about all of us,

17 if we share -- and I realize there's some lay people
18 -- but as an attorney, you can go out and practice
19 law if you can take a bar exam, which is why
20 accreditation is so critical.

We have a student

21 that drives two hours every day with four kids that
22 doesn't live in Tennessee.

She needs to be able to

23 take the bar.
24

Getting back to your point, Dean O'Rourke.

25 We've done a number of things.

As reflected in the

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1 record, we've hired a firm that does marketing
2 testing.

And one of the reasons was because LMU's a

3 small school that a lot of people don't know about.
4 When the University of California starts a law
5 school everybody knows about it, it's national news;
6 when LMU starts a law school, it's not.
7 a lot of money.

So we spent

We spent a lot of time working on

8 our marketing efforts, not just the effort, but
9 we're improving there.
10

That's in the record.

We have looked at all of the various

11 challenges that we face when recruiting students and
12 come up with plans to remediate those challenges,
13 which is part of effective strategic planning.

It

14 doesn't mean that it will always work, but that's
15 why you constantly assess and constantly work to
16 remediate those challenges. Everything from our
17 location -- we're in Knoxville, Tennessee, which is
18 a great location by the way, but LMU's not known for
19 that.

That's one of our challenges.

Our discount

20 rate, our competition.
21

We made changes in our Admissions

22 Department.

We hired somebody with a great deal of

23 experience and skill and nohow.

It's something we

24 didn't have, and we assessed it and remediated it.
25 We've looked at the economy and how we can impact

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1 that by keeping tuition low, our discount rate.
2 We're looking at models that will help us such as
3 study discount rates, one of the things that's
4 popular among schools now, scholarships.

We've

5 looked at scholarships and how those could impact
6 our students.
7

So we've looked at a lot of different

8 factors.

We have plans to remediate, we have plans

9 to assess those things as we move forward and
10 determine whether they are effective or ineffective.
11

DR. DAWSON:

Let me just say on behalf of

12 the University that we plan on an annual basis to
13 support the programs that we have instituted, and
14 certainly the law school is among those programs
15 that we will continue to support. And in the
16 foreseeable future, we do not think that there's a
17 problem with our finances and managing the resources
18 necessary to have a fine law school.
19

DEAN O'BRIEN:

In the order I've seen

20 them, we have Dennis, Erika, Ruth and Raymond.
21

MR. LYNCH:

My question is actually very

22 close but being more specific, not on the financial
23 side, just in what you've learned.

You projected

24 100; you hit 55 on the total number you projected.
25 Then you projected 55 and only got

42 --

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THE HONORABLE DURHAM:

Page 36

Dennis, could you

2 speak up a little.
3

DEAN LYNCH:

You projected high numbers.

4 You came in significantly lower.

The next time

5 around, you projected lower and you came in lower.
6 And now you're projecting higher.

What is it -- I

7 mean, I'm not clear exactly in the assessment you
8 just described when you started implementing some
9 changes.

What is it that you learned from those

10 over-projections with lower actual yields that have
11 led you to think now, you can get to 80?

What

12 specific sort of changes have you put into place as
13 a result of that assessment?
14

DEAN BECKMAN:

There are a number of

15 factors; but one of the things that we learned was
16 that we were ineffective in marketing our discount
17 rate and scholarship.

In other words, what I mean

18 by ineffective is we were passive about it, as
19 opposed to being aggressive about it.
20 that's critical.
21

I think

That's one thing that we learned.

Another thing we learned was that by using

22 our marketing firm, we found that our marketing
23 materials were highly ineffective.

And so what we

24 ended up finding was that if you look at marketing
25 materials -- and you're shaking your head like

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I mean, if you've

2 done any marketing, you understand that something
3 may look great.
4

Here's what we found:

25 percent of

5 everybody's idea -- we had this brainstorming
6 session -- 25 percent of everybody's ideas were
7 effective, 25 percent were actually effective in the
8 wrong direction, and then about half didn't make a
9 difference at all.

That's significant. When you're

10 putting money into marketing -- whether it's
11 Internet, whether it's email, whether it's print
12 materials, whether it's what they call freebee
13 material, it's like give a way -- it tends to be
14 ineffective.
15

I'll give you one anecdotal example. I

16 thought a letter from the dean would be effective,
17 right -- and I write a great letter.
18 effective.

It wasn't effective.

19 was a letter from a student.

It wasn't

What was effective

That was effective.

20 So that's some of the things that we've learned.
21

We learned that we needed students to get

22 involved in calling potential applicants. And we
23 used them and a way for them to make some money.
24 They would call because it's a colleague, you know,
25 a potential colleague.

That was effective.

We

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1 learned that our admissions director was
2 ineffective.

And this is the first cycle that Dean

3 Cook has been with us so he can't take the blame for
4 anything that's happened in the past, that's another
5 thing that I think was incredibly important.
6

We learned that, interestingly, we were

7 not effective in selling our location.
8 you what I mean.

Let me tell

LMU's been around since 1897.

9 is in Harrogate, Tennessee.

LMU

Who knows where

10 Harrogate, Tennessee is?

I didn't have a clue.

11 didn't know where it was.

The problem is when

I

12 you're a student, sometimes the city's important to
13 you.

And so what we were ineffective in doing is

14 saying, we're in Knoxville, Tennessee. Now, many of
15 you probably know where Knoxville, Tennessee is.
16 I'll tell you, there's no greater place in the
17 country to live, no offense, but it's awesome living
18 in Knoxville.

I love Knoxville.

So that's one of

19 the things that we learned.
20

We learned that our reputation, LMU's

21 reputation was localized as a small liberal arts
22 school.

And we ineffective in showing our programs.

23 So it means a lot when you have all these programs
24 that are available, professional programs.
25

We learned that -- one of the ways we

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1 market, as I'm sure many schools market, is you
2 target students who have taken the LSAT test, right.
3 Well, what we learned is, the candidate referral
4 service from which you buy your information, they
5 won't sell us information unless a person
6 specifically, affirmatively -- and I use the term
7 "check a box," but it's all electronic -- but check
8 a box that says you can submit to unaccredited
9 schools.
10

Now, how many students out there will let

11 their information go to an unaccredited school; I
12 can tell you, it's a very small percentage.

So that

13 means that we have to use a very small percentage of
14 folks from the candidate referral service and then
15 we have to market other ways.

And when we're a

16 small school that is not well-known, we've got to be
17 better at that so that's why we've had to target,
18 you know, bring in a marketing firm and do things
19 like that.
20

DEAN LYNCH:

21 informative.

Listening to that, it's very

I appreciate the explanation. But this

22 tension between whether you alter your planning to
23 assume fewer students learning everything you've
24 learned in terms of the time it may take for the
25 kind of change that you're talking about to take

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1 hold, or you project up in your planning, do you
2 think you can turn it around that fast?
3

I mean, somehow it doesn't -- in a

4 declining world of applicants and changes in
5 potential applicants dealing with debt-related
6 income and all the issues going on, it still sounds
7 strange that you've been through this

marketing --

8 these things you've identified -- is going to alter
9 it better than altering your planning to project
10 somewhat fewer students.

You jacked it back up to

11 almost double what you normally would.
12

DEAN BECKMAN:

13 things are important.

Well, to be fair, two
One, we've implemented these

14 marketing changes and we did all this planning last
15 year.

This is all in the record.

16 nothing new.
17 the Committee.

We've done all this.
This was before.

18 that's happened in the past.
19 alterations.
20

I mean, this is
This was before

So this is stuff

So we've made these

That's one.

Number two, we have altered and we

21 constantly review.

We are in the cycle right now

22 where we do our budget planning.

And so we have

23 reduced our numbers moving forward based on that
24 possibility.

You have to plan for both.

You have

25 to plan for fewer students, and you have to plan for

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1 additional students; but for budget planning you
2 should always plan for fewer students, so we have
3 done that.

And we do that every single year. It's a

4 very detailed, very long process.
5

So the planning actually breaks out in

6 different directions.

Part of the planning deals

7 with marketing; part of the planning deals with
8 budgeting.

So we've implemented these changes, and

9 we're now in the cycle where hopefully we'll see
10 that.

As Dr. Hess mentioned, we've seen an up-tic

11 in applicants.

So we're seeing some of that.

We're

12 seeing people becoming aware of our institution that
13 were not aware of our institution before.

We're

14 doing better effective marketing, and yet we are
15 projecting fewer students; hopefully, we'll
16 compensate for both of those things.

I think that's

17 what planning is; you've got to plan for those
18 contingencies in all directions.
19 that.

And we've done

I mean, we build models to do that so that we

20 have no surprises. One of the things that we're good
21 at is trying to come up with different contingences
22 so, okay, if this happens we do this; if this
23 happens, we do this.

Nobody can predict the future,

24 but we try to plan for all of those things.
25

Bringing in -- and I have to say it --

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1 bringing in Dean Cook has been a huge benefit too.
2 His experience has helped us tremendously in areas
3 based on marketing.

Some of the challenges he had

4 at his former institution translate well to East
5 Tennessee.

So we've had some great success in that

6 and in the fact that we've seen an uptick in
7 applications, you know, we'd like to think is
8 probative of our changes in design based upon our
9 planning.
10

DEAN HESS:

And to be fair, our size

11 institution an our location, there are lots of small
12 institutions in Appalachia.

And we are part of

13 associations, like the Appalachian College
14 Association, which is a group of small private
15 colleges.

We're networking with those colleges that

16 have students that have a similar background to our
17 students who might be now more comfortable at our
18 law school.

And we're beginning to build those

19 networks that we had not built until this point.
20 We're trying a lot of new strategies and a lot of
21 things are beginning to be fruitful for us.
22

The discount rate that was approved by our

23 Board came in late last year and had very little
24 impact on that class.
25 entire recruitment

It's available now for the

period -- if I'm not correct,

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1 correct me -- but it didn't make much difference
2 last year because it was approved late and it was
3 not made available early enough to help attract
4 students.
5

We have made strategic initiatives. We've

6 prioritized those initiatives.
7 their

effectiveness.

We are evaluating

We will continue to do what's

8 effective, and we will implement new strategies to
9 be more effective.

And as we intend to revise our

10 strategic plan per forma on a five-year basis we
11 will project some downturn in other programs, but we
12 project tremendous growth in other programs.
13

What we didn't and cannot introduce, I

14 misspoke on your previous question, is that we're
15 starting an honors college, and there is great
16 interest in our region in an honors college.

And it

17 will be on our campus and it will target pre18 professional students.
19

DR. DAWSON:

So we're doing a lot.
But ultimately when asked the

20 question, what happens if you have fewer students;
21 we are prepared for that inevitability and will
22 adjust the budget accordingly to support the law
23 school as needed with a smaller class size.
24

DEAN BECKMAN:

We have a cash strategic

25 initiative, a fully-funded cash strategic initiative

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And that amount, Dr.

2 Dawson?
3

DR. DAWSON:

Currently, $7 million for

4 strategic initiatives, the reserve for just this
5 kind of issue.
6

THE HONORABLE DURHAM:

Dean, the mission

7 that you offered to us today -- the purpose of a
8 feasibility study, I think it said this directly,
9 the purpose of the feasibility study is to determine
10 whether certain conditions exist that justify the
11 establishment of the new law school. Your
12 feasibility study was completed in 2008.
13

You correctly observed, I think, that the

14 Standards do not require more than one feasibility
15 study, but something happened, again it happened in
16 2008, which is that the country went into recession
17 and that the bottom fell out of the legal market.
18 There are some studies which suggest that the legal
19 profession has been hit as hard or harder than any
20 other industry in the United States.
21

I notice that when, in the transcript of

22 your appearance before the Accreditation Committee,
23 when pressed on this you responded by saying, well,
24 no, we never updated our 2008 feasibility study, but
25 let me tell you a couple of stories, and you

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1 provided two anecdotes, as I recall.
2

But I have to say, it troubles me that

3 given the nature of the impact on our profession
4 and, particularly, since you have identified your
5 mission to be services to a very particular
6 community, both educational services and legal
7 services, that you haven't undertaken any steps to
8 get some empirical data that would suggest that the
9 conditions exist in your market to justify the
10 establishment
11

of the new law school.

DEAN BECKMAN:

I don't think that's

12 accurate, and let me go back.

I think the

13 disconnect was -- the focus of the Committee on the
14 feasibility study.

The appropriate mechanism and

15 process to address those concerns would be on a
16 strategic plan, which we have done with great
17 detail.
18

THE HONORABLE DURHAM:

But there's another

19 disconnect because feasibility is oriented to
20 conditions justifying existence of a school; where a
21 strategic plan

goes into how the school, once

22 created, manages ongoing challenges.

And it's

23 really the former that I'm concerned about.
24

DEAN HESS:

25 is that market.

One of the ongoing challenges

Our strategic planning process at

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1 the institution is used as a model by many schools.
2 We break it out into every area of the institution.
3 There are environmental scans that are ongoing to
4 assess the market in each discipline where we have a
5 program.
6

There are changes that are made to all of

7 those recruitment efforts in all of those
8 disciplines to continue to support those programs.
9 Much of the information in that feasibility study
10 has not changed -- population projections have not
11 changed, the age of the people who will be retiring
12 have not, if anything, it's becoming more real.
13 There are many factors in that feasibility study
14 which have now become a part of an environmental
15 scan for strategic planning.
16

The feasibility study had an end date;

17 strategic planning is an ongoing continuous
18 research-based process to improve the program and
19 services of the law school and the University.
20

DR. DAWSON:

So we would submit that a

21 part of the strategic planning process is, indeed,
22 that environmental scan which includes a look at the
23 feasibility.
24

DEAN BECKMAN:

The other thing is, when

25 you build an institution, you build an institution

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1 for the long-term, not the short term and not the
2 medium term.

As was said recently -- and this is a

3 quote, these are not my words -- "Regardless of what
4 some may see as the desirability of denying access
5 to the legal profession on the basis of even medium6 term employment opportunities, the accrediting
7 agency simply cannot lawfully do so."

Those are the

8 words of the ABA, I believe Mr. Askew wrote those
9 words in response to a letter from Senator Grassley.
10 Universities, institutions, must build programs
11 based on the long-term.

And what's critical is

12 having the ability to handle short-term challenges
13 or medium-term challenges.

Not everybody does that

14 well; Lincoln Memorial University has a history of
15 doing it exceptionally well.

I mean, we've been

16 around since 1897.
17

The other thing is, we have to recognize

18 that in addition to the comment that the population
19 is growing, Tennessee -- East Tennessee and
20 Tennessee has not been hit as hard as other areas of
21 the country in our Appalachian region. It's not that
22 it hasn't been hit, it just hasn't been hit as hard.
23

And also it's important to know that we

24 have a lot of people -- part of the part-time
25 program is people that have to continue to work, but

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1 still want to get the same education to become
2 attorneys; and that's an opportunity that really no
3 one else in our region offers, you have to go as far
4 west as Nashville, and that's not an accredited
5 institution, or south to Atlanta.
6

THE HONORABLE DURHAM:

That's true. If I

7 might just ask one follow up question.

Part of your

8 mission, your stated mission is to produce graduates
9 who will go back into the underserved communities in
10 East Tennessee and serve them, and yet the
11 documentation suggests that paid employment that
12 would support such a service has shrunk in the
13 region rather than even been maintained and
14 stabilized.
15

DEAN BECK:

I think that what you see in

16 the region, the Appalachian region, is a shift.

I

17 mean, there is some shrinking in certain areas and
18 not in others.

I mean, we don't have a lot of

19 really big firms; we just don't.
20 small and medium-sized firms.

We have a lot of

And I've talk with

21 people regularly, as does career services, as does
22 the rest of our faculty, and I will tell you -- we
23 have an Advisory Board which consists of judges and
24 lawyers throughout the region trying to encompass
25 part of the Appalachian region, and they'll tell you

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They do have a lot of

2 work.
3

It changes, the work changes, and the

4 opportunities shift, but they're there. Lawyers, you
5 know,

the advantage that you have -- when I came

6 out of college, I couldn't do anything with my
7 degree except go to school.

Some degrees, you know,

8 there's a lot of liberal arts degrees that just
9 don't provide opportunities.

A law degree and the

10 ability to practice law provides opportunities for
11 individuals at all levels, whether it's hanging out
12 a shingle or partnering up.

And the need is there

13 for the legal representation.
14 that.

Let's not get lost on

The reality is that need is increasing.

The

15 need for good legal representation is increasing.
16

Now, they're areas that maybe limited, but

17 it's still there -- it may be family, it may be
18 immigration -- but they're there. There's like two
19 immigration attorneys in East Tennessee, and our
20 fastest growing population is Hispanic in areas that
21 we have immigration issues. So, you know, those are
22 growing.

It's shifting; it's not necessarily

23 shrinking, it's shifting.

And part of what we do is

24 try to provide opportunity.
25

Additionally, there's court-appointed

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1 work, you know, which is not necessarily shrinking,
2 but probably growing.

So there's lots of

3 opportunities.
4

DR. DAWSON:

Let me emphasize, however,

5 that your Standards don't, in fact, emphasize the
6 concerns that you raise.
7

MS. ROBINSON:

I have a few questions.

8

DEAN BECKMAN:

Yes, ma'am.

9

MS. ROBINSON:

The first question is, if

10 you could describe for me the theoretical
11 underpinnings of your Academic Success Program, and
12 what do you mean by -- how you serve students who
13 are struggling, and what evidence do you have that
14 those methods actually worked?
15

My second question is -- it's kind of a

16 comment and then a question.

We know that students

17 are generally more successful in obtaining legal
18 employment if they are able to find a clerkship
19 during their one-L or two-L summer.

Can you tell me

20 the percentage of students from your inaugural class
21 and your subsequent class that had summer employment
22 and where they were employed?
23

DEAN BECKMAN:

Sure.

Obviously, two

24 different points, so I'll address them individually.
25

With regard to the academic success, our

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1 program is, as I mentioned before, has tremendous
2 breadth.

It is -- one of the things that we did

3 this last year was, we had Bridge Week, which we had
4 expanded this last year based on the assessment of
5 the previous year.

We added some time to it.

6 changed the offerings.

We've

We do assessment at every

7 level.
8

So with regard to course level assessment

9 -- which this is what it would be -- we do
10 assessment of Bridge Week which is one part, each of
11 the sub-classes -- which is Academic Success I,
12 Academic Success II, Academic Success III -- each of
13 those components.

We have writing tutors.

14 are people that provide one-on-one tutoring.

These
We

15 employ three of them that provide one-on-one
16 tutoring to students that have legal writing issues.
17

One of the things that we have found is

18 that one of the fundamental issues that students
19 face is writing and the ability to write well.

And

20 in talking to -- we do a great deal of faculty
21 development.

And so one of the things that we found

22 in talking to faculty at other legal institutions
23 across the country, regardless of entrance
24 credentials, writing problems are pervasive across
25 schools.

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So we think it's important, and we put a

2 great deal of energy into helping with writing.
3 writing tutors.

So

We do academic counseling and then,

4 of course, workshops that are singularly focused,
5 depending on the workshop, in the skill that we have
6 determined really needs help.
7

We also -- the ASP is supposed to help

8 them prepare for classes, prepare them for exams -9 both,

right -- and how to better educate our

10 students in exam preparation.

So not just how to

11 take the exam, but how to effectively devote their
12 time to preparing for exams.

Things like, you know,

13 we found -- again, through our assessment process -14 that some of our students struggled with fundamental
15 issues like outlining. So we got together.

We said,

16 let's have some workshops and let's do some
17 exercises on how to better outline, how to prepare
18 your materials so that you study more effectively.
19

One of the things that we found, through

20 our assessment mechanisms, is that a lot of students
21 think that, well, if I managed to get through
22 school, undergraduate school with good grades those
23 skills should translate well into law school.

They

24 don't -- well, sometimes they do, but they don't.
25 So to help those students, we've developed workshops

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Look, let's find your weaknesses.

2 And, of course, they can change, which is why we
3 constantly assess each term and each class.
4

The philosophy of ASP really centers

5 around the acquisition of knowledge, the
6 internalization of knowledge, and the application of
7 knowledge.

It's not just black and white, as far as

8 black letter law.
9 like a lawyer.

It's how to think, how to think

We have -- for us, academic success

10 starts before students matriculate.

And that means

11 it starts at Bridge Week before they ever take their
12 first class, so that we can try to ramp-up some of
13 their skills in areas that they may be lacking.
14

It provides an overview of the system, not

15 just legal education, but what they do every day.
16 An introduction to the common law system, how to
17 brief cases, our technology.

We actually hold a

18 mock class.

We hold a mock exam. We teach them how

19 to do IRAP.

We give them lectures on things like

20 thinking like a lawyer, time management.

Time

21 management's a critical problem for students.

And

22 we try to help them from the very beginning to
23 become more effective time managers.
24

MS. ROBINSON:

Let me interrupt you.

25

DEAN BECKMAN:

Yes, ma'am.

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How do you

2 determine that the strategies that you are imploring
3 are the most effective strategies in achieving
4 academic success for students that are struggling?
5 Because I understand from reading the record,
6 reading the transcript, all of these programs, but
7 how did you make your determination that these are
8 the methods that would be the most effective in
9 delivering those services?

So I guess that's my

10 question.
11

DEAN BECKMAN:

Sure.

We can ask, to my

12 left, Dean Meldrum to expand on it; but we do that
13 for not only course-level assessment, we do it
14 through measuring outputs, grades.

And remember,

15 one of the things that we have that's unique that
16 gives us the opportunity to measure more outputs
17 than many institutions is, we literally have daily
18 assessment.

So that means that, you know, when most

19 of us went to law school, I had a final exam and
20 that was it, and lot of schools follow that model.
21

We don't follow that model.

We use

22 interactive technology so every day -- there's some
23 exceptions, but very few -- every day a student is
24 going to know how they're doing on the subject
25 matter in a given class.

So one of the things that

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1 we can look at -- we compile all the data, and we
2 examine all that data.

So let's say that you're

3 struggling in an area.

And one of the things that

4 ASP will help you focus on is tailoring -- okay, I'm
5 struggling in torts, so let's look at that. And we
6 do that though a number of different ways that
7 things.

I won't go into substance; you don't want

8 substance, you want the assessment.
9

So then what we look at is, okay, let's

10 start looking at your daily assessment data and see
11 if we're seeing improvement -- because we can do
12 that daily.

We can do that with mandatory midterms.

13 We can do that with our final exams.
14 measure outputs and assess inputs.
15 and then look at that data.

So we can

We can do both

We abrogate that data

16 across the entire institution, not just with regard
17 to students that may be struggling, we do it across
18 the entire institution constantly. With that said,
19 Dean Meldrum, would you -20

DEAN MELDRUM:

21 two different approaches.

Essentially, we had to take
Obviously, when we

22 started, we did not have a mechanism for assessment
23 to determine the efficacy of the program.

So what

24 we did is, we took a look at undergraduate
25 institutions first because they have a much longer

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1 history in using Academic Success Programs than law
2 schools have had.

So we tried to do a lot of

3 research in other areas to determine what worked
4 with the population and demographics of students
5 that we've recruited.
6

Secondly, we looked at other law schools

7 that also have similar student credentials, about
8 those things that worked and didn't.

And what we

9 found immediately is that were losing a lot of
10 students during the first few weeks after they were
11 enrolled.

And so what that said,

to me at least,

12 is that many of our students are learning very
13 quickly that they're not cut out for this -- they
14 don't have the time to commit, they don't have the
15 desire, or perhaps they don't have the capacity -16 while we thought they did,

maybe they got in there

17 and, at least, self-assessed that they don't.
18

So in light of that, we decided that it

19 would be effective if we create a Bridge Program so
20 that way, before they ever matriculate, they go
21 through a pretty rigorous week of what law school
22 will be like.

And we'd bring in the doctrinal

23 faculty, and they give those pretend classes.

We

24 give them cases to read and they brief.
25

So what we

discovered is we did lose some

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1 students during that Bridge Week, and we never made
2 money off them.

We didn't charge them tuition.

3 They never matriculated and so they never pulled
4 down those federal dollars.

And that really helped

5 because it gave them an opportunity to see whether
6 or not they might be successful.

So we found it was

7 important to empower them, to give them enough
8 information to decide on their own.

So we did that

9 by creating the Bridge Week.
10

Second of all, we created the Academic

11 Success Program I that all students have to enroll
12 in.

And we thought that was important because it

13 takes away the stigma of Academic Success.

Students

14 don't want to be enrolled in a remedial program,
15 that makes them uncomfortable and I don't blame
16 them, so we created the ASP I program.
17 require everyone to take it.

And we

Not only do some of

18 the stronger students pull up the weaker students,
19 it allows them all to feel involved.
20

So from that program, once we got that

21 program started, then we'd start assessing how they
22 did.

So during the first week, we would give them

23 sample exercises where they have an opportunity to
24 analyze and issue.

And then along the way through

25 ASP I, we would compare it back to how they did at

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1 the beginning to see if they were improving,
2 especially including the practice exams. With those,
3 we actually have the doctrinal faculty that are
4 teaching in the first semester create those practice
5 exams and get practice answers.
6

Because what we have found that the

7 students most appreciate about our Academic Success
8 Program is that it's directly tied to the courses
9 they're taking that semester so they can gauge, not
10 just whether they're learning in theory, but are
11 they actually learning how to apply it in this
12 particular professor's course.

So along the way, we

13 always get feedback, both summatively and
14 formatively, to determine whether or not they're
15 making that progress.
16

We keep electronic writing portfolios on

17 all of our students.

So everything they've ever

18 written we keep; we pull those randomly every
19 semester.

I review them, the director of academic

20 success reviews them, and we actually have a rubric
21 to determine whether or not they're making progress.
22 So I can probably go on and on, but I don't want to
23 belabor it, but that's essentially how we determine
24 whether or not it's effective.

And when we find

25 it's not, we change it -- by adding ASP II, for

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1 instance.
2

We found ASP I might not be enough. So for

3 those students who fell in the gap -- they were
4 above a 2.0, but they didn't have to take ASP, but
5 they weren't doing so well, they needed a little
6 more.

They needed a little more help.

So we have

7 made ASP II a required course for students who fail
8 to achieve a 2.33 in their second semester.
9

So, again, we get that through assessment,

10 by looking at their needs and how they're
11 progressing through the program.

And, again, I

12 think most importantly about our ASP that fulfills
13 our mission, it's all free.
14

MS. ROBINSON:

My hope was that are works

15 that available that specifically look at law
16 students.

And I'm thinking specifically of Michael

17 Schwartz and his empirical works.

And I was hoping

18 that we would you hear you discuss that a little bit
19 more, but I am comfortable enough to move on to the
20 question about students and the students that
21 actually had jobs during your summer program.
22

DEAN BECKMAN:

I'll do that, but I do want

23 you to know that we've consulted with Michael.

He

24 was a former colleague.

He

I know him very well.

25 was down in Charleston, down the road from you.

And

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As well as the gentleman from

2 Suffolk, his name slips my mind -- Jim Janda.

We

3 consulted with him to do this very thing -- to see
4 what we're doing and get some other perspectives on
5 whether we can improve or change those things.

So

6 we have done that. We've also consulted with the -7 again I forget the name, it's in the record -- but
8 the lady who wrote Juris Types.

What's the test --

9 the personality test and how it applies to different
10 learning types.
11

MS. ROBINSON:

Martha Peters?

12

DEAN BECKMAN:

Martha Peters, there you

13 go.

Sorry.

So we've done all of that in hopes to

14 tailor our program.
15
16 fact,

With regard to your question, we do, in
track that very carefully; but I can tell you

17 that -- I can actually break it down.

This was the

18 student employment and placements last summer.
19 Everybody who sought placement received it.

Now, it

20 was not a huge cohort of students, but everybody who
21 wanted some placement received it.

And we actually

22 break it down and I can tell you with exact
23 specificity where they went.

And I'm sure you don't

24 want to hear them all, but let me give you -25

MS. ROBINSON:

I just want the number.

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1 Out of X students, how many students receive
2 placement for the summer?
3

DEAN BECKMAN:

4 the right number.

Let me make sure I give you

The number who sought employment

5 last summer was 30 and they all got it.
MS. ROBINSON:

And how many were in the

8

DEAN BECKMAN:

Well, eligible for --

9

MS. ROBINSON:

Eligible for employment.

10

DEAN BECKMAN:

136, but a lot of those are

6
7 class?

11 part-time students so they have full-time jobs -12 some of those are in law firms, some aren't -- so
13 they wouldn't have been seeking necessarily.
14

DEAN MELDRUM:

And if I could throw in, 10

15 percent of those were employed in judicial
16 internships or externships.
17

DEAN BECKMAN:

Yeah, we have some students

18 that already have gotten full-time employment by the
19 way, offers of full-time employment postgraduation
20 including one with the Tennessee Supreme Court.
21

DEAN O'BRIEN:

All right.

We're going to

22 move on to Chief Justice McGregor.
23

THE HONORABLE MCGREGOR:

In your response

24 to the Accreditation Committee Report, in that reply
25 in a number of your arguments you refer to and rely

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1 upon what you describe as the findings of SACS-COC
2 and the Tennessee Board of Law Examiners and the
3 Site Report, and you asked us to reject the
4 Accreditation Committee's Report based upon the
5 findings of those three bodies.
6

Now, for my question, assume with me that

7 his Council finds or regards the conclusions of SACS
8 and the Tennessee Board of Law Examiners
9 interesting, but of no evidentiary value in
10 determining whether you complied -- substantially
11 complied with the ABA standards; and also assume, as
12 is the case, that this Council gives no particular
13 deference to the Site Report findings, unlike the
14 deference we give to the Accreditation Committee.
15

So please set aside for me for my

16 hypothetical question the findings you replied upon
17 on the SACS, the Tennessee Board of Law Examiners
18 and the Site Report.

Dean, as a lawyer as a legal

19 education professional, would you argue to this
20 Council that your school has carried the burden of
21 showing substantial compliance with the Standards
22 without relying upon those three sources?
23

DEAN BECKMAN:

24

THE HONORABLE MCGREGOR:

Absolutely, yes.
All right. Would

25 you tell me why then in your brief to us you argue

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1 that we should set these aside based on the ABA Site
2 Team Report and the findings of SACS-COC and the
3 TBLE.
4

DEAN BECKMAN:

Sure, I'll do that. I'll

5 address each one.
6

THE HONORABLE MCGREGOR:

And I also want -

7 - and I just want to know -- you don't have to go
8 through lots of detail here, Dean; but as to each of
9 those Standards where the Accreditation Committee
10 found lack of substantial compliance, would you
11 please just tell me what evidence you replied upon,
12 leaving aside those three sources.
13

DEAN BECKMAN:

14

DEAN HESS:

15 that.

Okay. Dr. Hess --

Let me just say a word about

Each of those findings in each of those

16 Standards that you cited those are not just ABA
17 Standards, those refer to Federal Standards. The
18 Southern Association of Colleges and Schools -19

THE HONORABLE MCGREGOR:

No, no. No, I'm

20 not -- leave aside those findings, because I really
21 think they do not have evidentiary value for us.

I

22 don't know whether the rest of the Council agrees
23 with me or not.

So I'm very curious to think what

24 you think is sufficient to carry your burden without
25 those.

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Sure.

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I think that

2 although the brief certainly does outline specifics
3 with regard to those other bodies; it also outlines
4 specifics with regard to, yes, the Site Team Report
5 the findings of the Committee.
6

THE HONORABLE MCGREGOR:

Maybe I can

7 short-circuit this because I know we're beyond time.
8 Are there factors you would rely upon, other than
9 those identified in the brief to us; or if we go
10 back and see what factors, other than the three
11 things I've taken out of the picture, if we go back
12 to your brief, will everything be there that you
13 think we should rely upon to be testifying before
14 the Accreditation Committee?
15

DEAN BECKMAN:

16

THE HONORABLE MCGREGOR:

17 fine.
18

Yes, remember -Okay. That's

That's -DEAN BECKMAN:

19 your Honor, if I might.

Let me point one thing out,
Under the Rules of

20 Procedure, all of the evidence that was submitted to
21 the ABA in the 18 exhibits that I have submitted
22 today are properly before you.
23

Additionally, if you look at the Rules of

24 Procedure, it says that, in effect, the conclusions
25 reached by the Committee are de novo. It's the

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1 findings -- it's the findings that you must give
2 deference to, unless there's not substantial
3 evidence in the record.

So it is our position that

4 there is not substantial evidence in the record with
5 regard to those portions of the particular findings
6 used to support the conclusions.
7
8 to you is:

THE HONORABLE MCGREGOR:

And my question

If we set aside your argument that there

9 is no basis for the Accreditation Committee's
10 findings because of the Site Report, then is
11 everything we need to support that argument -12 because that argument does rely upon, I think you
13 would agree, on the findings of the Site Report -14 if you set that aside and there are other reasons to
15 find that the Accreditation Committee made arbitrary
16 findings, they're all there in your written
17 argument.
18

DEAN BECKMAN:

They are.

But can I just

19 give you one example to make sure we're on the same
20 page, if I might, your Honor?
21

THE HONORABLE MCGREGOR:

22

DEAN BECKMAN:

Okay.

One example; and I have to

23 put the letter in front of me, so forgive me for a
24 moment.
25

Here's an example.

They said that -- this

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2 reference.

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I'll give you a specific

This is the Committee's letter, page 13

3 of 23 where they talk about the admissions and the
4 first year class profile.
5

What they say is that there's a decline --

6 just this one example, as I said, your Honor -- a
7 decline in yield.
8 misinterpreted.

So although it's correct; it's
And so I think you've got to look

9 at it carefully to recognize that it is, in fact,
10 misinterpreted.
11

THE HONORABLE MCGREGOR:

And that argument

12 is in your brief?
13

DEAN BECKMAN:

It is, yes, ma'am; but to

14 get to your point, it's in here.

So it is here.

I

15 just think that there should be guidance into how
16 those are looked at.
17

DEAN RUSSELL:

Your Honor, if I understand

18 your question, I think you're asking if you put all
19 of these reports aside, does sufficient evidence
20 exist within the record -21

THE HONORABLE MCGREGOR:

22

DEAN RUSSELL:

Yes.

-- to support our petition

23 for provisional accreditation.
24

THE HONORABLE MCGREGOR:

No; have you

25 carried your burden of establishing substantial

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1 compliance?
2

DEAN RUSSELL:

And, your Honor, yes. I

3 would specifically point you to the Self Study and
4 all of its exhibits.

There are a number of

5 additional updates we provided to the American Bar
6 Association, but the Self Study is our primary
7 compliance document.
8

DEAN O'BRIEN:

All right.

We'll go to

9 Raymond.
10

DEAN PIERCE:

11

DEAN O'BRIEN:

My question's been answered.
All right.

Let's go to

12 Greg.
13

MR. MURPHY:

Dean, can you tell me what

14 percentage of your students come from Tennessee?
15

DEAN BECKMAN:

The vast majority. One

16 moment, sir.
17

DEAN MELDRUM:

There were 75 to 85 percent

18 came from Tennessee.
19

DEAN BECKMAN:

That's not everybody, but

20 that's the last class.
21

MR. MURPHY:

22 southern Appalachia.

So you hope to serve all of
So you would expect most of

23 those students to stay in Tennessee to serve the
24 population in Tennessee; is that correct?
25

DEAN BECKMAN:

I believe that's true.

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And the Tennessee Board of

2 Bar Examiners, as I understand it, before you could
3 open your doors, it said it would allow the
4 graduates of the school to take the Tennessee Bar
5 Exam, right?
6

DEAN BECKMAN:

7

MR. MURPHY:

Yes, sir.

Has that organization given

8 you any indications that it would withdraw that if
9 this Council did not grant provisional approval.
10

DEAN BECKMAN:

We will be reviewed. They

11 have not telegraphed one way or the other what their
12 decision would be; but that letter actually triggers
13 that because their letter understood we were
14 applying for ABA accreditation, and if we aren't
15 granted it, we will go before them again for review.
16

MR. MURPHY:

They obviously did their own

17 independent analysis applying their own standards
18 and their own judgment with respect to the decision
19 to allow the students to take the bar examination;
20 you would expect them then, after they hear whatever
21 our decision is, to take another look at that and
22 make their own independent judgment, correct?
23

DEAN BECKMAN:

I would expect that, yes,

24 sir.
25

MR. MURPHY:

But you've heard nothing from

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1 them to suggest that if the Council decided not to
2 grant provisional approval, that being the judgment
3 of the Accreditation Committee that would take
4 place, that the Board would withdraw it's previous
5 ruling?
6

DEAN BECKMAN:

7 do that.

sir.

8

MR. MURPHY:

They have the authority to

They have the authority, but

9 you haven't heard anything from them to suggest that
10 they would; is that true?
DEAN BECKMAN:

11

Not in either direction.

12 It wouldn't be appropriate under the timeline.
13 We've certainly informed them, as were required to
14 do.

We've informed them of the Committee's

15 decision; we had to do that, they're an accreditor.
16 But they have not, no.
17

MR. MURPHY:

I mean, the answer is, no.
They haven't telegraphed

18 their report?
19

DEAN BECKMAN:

20

MR. MURPHY:

21

DEAN O'BRIEN:

22

PROFESSOR DAVIS:

They have not, sir.

Thank you.
Michael?
I don't know which Dean

23 to address this to, perhaps Dean Cook or Dean
24 Beckman.

Over the last two years you've admitted

25 about 70 percent of your applicants, but that means

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Had you admitted

2 more than 70 percent, you probably would have come
3 closer to your enrollment projections.
4

I'm curious, the basis upon which you

5 don't admit students -- and there's two subparts to
6 that -- first, do you have an absolute academic
7 profile floor below which you will not go regardless
8 of what else is implied (a); and (b), what other
9 factors, short of things that attract the attention
10 of character fitness review people, do you take into
11 account when deciding not to admit people?
12

DEAN BECKMAN:

So part of your question,

13 the answer is we do not have an absolute floor.
14 That would violate the LSAC's policies regarding
15 good admission's practices, and we don't think that
16 a floor is appropriate.

We do look at files in

17 their entirety.
18

And so that means that in addition to LSAT

19 scores and undergraduate GPA, we look at a number of
20 factors.

We look at graduate degrees. We look at

21 graduate GPAs.

We look at experience post-

22 graduation at the undergraduate level.

We look at

23 other areas of service that they may have done.

We

24 look at their work in the community.
25

We look at letters of reference. And we

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1 all know there are substantive letters of reference
2 and not substantive letters of reference. We read
3 them all.

We look at their personal statement.

4 look at their CV.

We

We look at everything in their

5 file that may impact -- now, I'll turn this actually
6 over in a moment to Professor Reid because she
7 chairs our Admissions Committee, and she may give
8 you some more insight. But we do look at everything.
9

We also have the option of personal

10 interviews.

And so we'll bring in students that we

11 think, you know, I don't know.

I mean, anybody on

12 the Admissions Committee can ask for a personal
13 interview and then we would bring them in.

As I

14 understand, that's highly unusual at law schools but
15 that's that personal contact.
16
17 sir.

So let me give you a specific example,
One of the things that the Committee talked

18 about, again they focused solely on LSAT scores and
19 we admitted a 138, a very low score. Well, if you
20 look at if from a holistic perspective, maybe it
21 wasn't a bad decision.

This individual was a

22 professional educator in East Tennessee.
23 earned doctoral degree.
24 specialist degree.

She had an

She had an earned education

She had two master's degrees, in

25 addition to her bachelor's degree.

Her GPA from her

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1 graduate-level work, I believe the lowest was a
2 3.85.

The lowest was a 3.85 across her graduate

3 degrees.
4

We looked at her work.

5 minority.

She was a

She was going to stay in the area.

We

6 looked at everything.

We had personal contact with

7 her on two occasions.

So, yes, we made the decision

8 on other factors to admit her.

We've got to look --

9 we can't serve the mission if we just look at
10 numbers.

We can't.

11

PROFESSOR REID:

So that gives you some insight.
Well, I would just add,

12 we look at the entire applicant's file.

So we look

13 at things other than the LSAT and the undergraduate
14 GPA and we make these kind considerations based upon
15 their writing sample, their prior work history,
16 their legal experience because a lot of times,
17 they're paralegals and court reporters, things of
18 that nature.
19

I'm the chair of the Committee and then

20 there's two other faculty members that decide upon
21 and vote.

If both decide we're going to approve

22 entrance, it's up to the Dean who then decides, yes
23 or no.

And there's actually been times in which the

24 Dean hasn't agreed with us and said, no, I don't
25 think this person is capable to complete the course

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In the case of a tie, as

2 the chair, I make the determination of whether we're
3 going to say yes or no; and, again, that goes to the
4 Dean.
5

We've also received a lot of training from

6 the Dean of Academics taking a look at the LSAT
7 Correlation Study, as well as discussing academic
8 dismissal, and making a determination what type of
9 predictors we look at in the LSAT and undergraduate
10 GPA in determining what we should take into
11 consideration.

However, like the Dean said, we look

12 at the entire picture of the person, and there are
13 people who have low LSATs, but -- have I answered
14 that?
15

PROFESSOR DAVIS:

16

DEAN O'BRIEN:

17

DEAN BUTTERFOSS:

You have.

Ed Butterfoss?
Dean, am I correct, you

18 goals for the entering class in 2012 are 80 full
19 time and 25 part time?
20

DEAN BECKMAN:

That was the last

21 projection we submitted.

We've revised those

22 numbers.
23

DEAN BUTTERFOSS:

24

DEAN BECKMAN:

25

DEAN BUTTERFOSS:

What is the new one?

Forty and 20.
You mentioned an uptick

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I guess my question is going to be

2 whether the uptick was sufficient to support your
3 hope for 80; but now you're down to 40, that's a
4 couple fewer than last time.
5

DEAN BECKMAN:

6

DEAN BUTTERFOSS:

It is.
Do you have projections

7 beyond that, for the next two or three years?
8

DEAN BECKMAN:

9

DEAN BUTTERFOSS:

We do.

10

DEAN BECKMAN:

11

DEAN BUTTERFOSS:

12

DEAN BECKMAN:

What would they be?

Will you give me a moment?
Sure.

For the years following --

13 I want to make sure I have my years right -- next
14 year 40, the year after that 55, 55, 55, and 20, 20,
15 20.

When I say that, what I'm talking about is full

16 time, part time.
17

That's what I mean.

DEAN BUTTERFOSS:

And do you have goals or

18 targets for the median 25th/75th LSAT?
19

DEAN BECKMAN:

We do.

As part of our

20 strategic planning was a desire to increase that.
21 So what we put in our strategic plan is -- I'll tell
22 you specifically what's in it -- yes, sir; under our
23 statistic plan, the law school shall increase the
24 entering academic credentials of the student body
25 over the next three years with LSAT and

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1 undergraduate GPA scores increasing in each cohort.
2

The goal under the strategic plan is to

3 have a median LSAT of 150 and a GPA of 3.2.
4

DEAN BUTTERFOSS:

And that's what, in say

5 three years?
6

DEAN BECKMAN:

7

DEAN BUTTERFOSS:

Yes.
In the original pro

8 forma, I think the cumulative investment by the
9 University was projected to be about 4.5 million.
10

DEAN O'BRIEN:

Ed, will you speak up,

11 please.
12

DEAN BUTTERFOSS:

I'm sorry.

In the

13 original pro forma, I think the cumulative
14 investment by the University was projected to be
15 about 4.5 million; is that correct?
16

DEAN BECKMAN:

17

DEAN BUTTERFOSS:

I believe that's correct.
It looks like in the new

18 operating budgets which have some projections out a
19 few years, that the cumulative never goes above
20 1.75; am I misreading it or is that correct?
21

DEAN BECKMAN:

That the cumulative -- I

22 don't think I understand your question fully.
23

DEAN BUTTERFOSS:

Instead of 4.5 million

24 as a cumulative investment by the University, it
25 peaks at about 1.75 and then starts going down.

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Well, you're talking --

2 you're talking about net revenue, right?

Is that

3 what you're talking about -- I mean -4

DEAN HESS:

5

DEAN BECKMAN:

6 then it plateaus.
7 plateaus.
8

Yes.
It goes up every year and

It goes up every year and

Let me find the budget in the file.
DEAN HESS:

The University's commitment

9 declines the law schools ability to -10

DEAN BUTTERFOSS:

Right, but I'm talking

11 about the cumulative University investment over the
12 years.
13

DEAN BECKMAN:

14 down that radically.

The cumulative couldn't go

I just want to make sure I

15 answer your question.

The cumulative couldn't go

16 down.
17

DEAN BUTTERFOSS:

I'm not saying it goes

18 down; I'm saying in the budget now the maximum looks
19 like 1.75, and the pro forma was 4.5.
20

DEAN BECKMAN:

I'd have to look to tell

21 you because I just don't -22

DEAN BUTTERFOSS:

That's okay.

Let me go

23 to a different topic.
24

DEAN BECKMAN:

25

DEAN BUTTERFOSS:

Yes, sir.
I understand you have

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1 this philosophy of kind of all hands on deck when it
2 comes to career services, career advice, academic
3 success, etc.

And I guess my concern is, I'm

4 looking at -- and, again, this is coming from a
5 perspective of someone who's a dean and associate
6 dean, so this isn't from an oppressed faculty member
7 worrying about the workload.
8

I'm looking at faculty obligations. Three

9 classes per semester.

When the externship program

10 starts, faculty members will be supervising
11 individual students and will be required to meet
12 with them for at least four hour per students.
13 Office hours are required -- five live, three
14 online.

There's a group that chooses the embedded

15 turning point questions, there have to be 15 common
16 questions across the class.
17 pro bono requirement.

They have ten hours of

And then there's these

18 anonymous reviews of three colleagues that they have
19 to review the classes and write up all the things.
20

I'm just wondering after all of that, can

21 you really count on the faculty to fill in as a
22 career services resource and as an academic
23 assessment source.
24 overloaded.
25

It just seems like they're

And, in addition, create scholarships.

DEAN BECKMAN:

Let me address that from

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First of all, the majority of all

2 those things you talked about were faculty created.
3 They created them.
4 they did.

They got together and they talked -DEAN BUTTERFOSS:

5
6 Dean.

They can change them. I mean,

That's not my question,

Did they overburden themselves?
DEAN BECKMAN:

7

Well, you know, they will

8 assess that, obviously, because that's part of our
9 assessment in strategic planning.
10 those things.

We talked about

You know, strategic planning happens

11 in room like this.

We all get together. We talk

12 about things like that.

One of the things

13 interestingly enough that comes up is, we have a
14 policy that they have to have their exams graded in
15 10 days.

They created it.

Because that's a burden

16 so, you know, what's interesting is, it comes up all
17 the time.

Because when we first started, I think

18 policy was 30 days.

And they'll complain about it,

19 but they won't change it.
20
21 that.

DEAN BUTTERFOSS:
My question is:

I'm not worried about

Is it legitimate for you to

22 point to the faculty, who look relatively
23 overburdened, as supplementing your career services
24 office, supplementing your academic success program?
25

DEAN BECKMAN:

First of all, it's built

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In other

2 words, the reality is -- and you've been doing this
3 a long time, and so I know that you know that you
4 have students that come to you all the time about
5 career questions and career choices.

I do too.

6 It's what really happens in school.

And so it's

7 effective.
8

DEAN BUTTERFOSS:

But I also know that you

9 wouldn't say, therefore, we don't have to hire any
10 Career Services people?
11
12 done.

DEAN BECKMAN:

And that's not what we've

We've hired two, all right, that was

13 evidenced in the record.
14 benchmark is.

And I'm not sure what the

The Standard says an active Career

15 Services Department.

We clearly have an active

16 Career Services Department.
17 any disputing that.

I don't think there's

If you want to use a benchmark

18 then we say, well, let's look at other schools.
19

Well, you know what, I did.

And I can

20 tell you what the numbers are at every fourth-tier
21 school that reported.

I can tell you what they are.

22 And they range from one up to, I think it was John
23 Marshall Atlanta that has 11 -- but that's an
24 extreme -- but most have one, two, and three.
25 have one, two, three.

Most

And these are fully

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We have two, we

2 have no graduates yet, and because we constantly
3 assess and reassess, if we need to add three or we
4 need to add four, part of assessment and planning
5 process is that very thing.
6

I can tell you that my budget -- the way

7 our budget works is, we create a budget, sit down
8 with the CFO -- and this is all in the documents,
9 okay, our detailed process is in the documents -10 and then that goes to Dr. Dawson and Dr. Dawson
11 presents that to the Board.
12

And I've never sat down with Dr. Dawson or

13 the CFO and said, you know, I've got to have four
14 people and they said, no.
15 for it.

I mean, I have a reason

But they don't, you know, if you've got to

16 have a person and planning says we've got to have a
17 person, then we hire the person.
18

DEAN MELDRUM:

Could I, sir, if I may.

As

19 it relates to the three classes that you mentioned,
20 while that's our policy that allows us to provide
21 that many courses for faculty without overload pay,
22 we never have exceeded that amount. We've never had
23 to pay overload pay.
24 teach over that.

We've never asked anyone to

And I have only one time had one

25 professor who taught three courses, and she sits

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1 here now because she asked me to allow her to teach
2 an elective that she really wanted to teach.
3

All of our faculty thus far have only

4 taught two sections at one time, and all of our
5 sections are very small.

The largest class that's

6 ever been taught had 65 students; but most of our
7 classes, as you can tell by the size of our cohort
8 are very small, especially our writing courses and
9 ASP.

Those run, I think, 20 students per class. So

10 the burden is a bit diminished because of the size
11 of the class.
12

I would also say that we have an

13 externship director as well because our externship
14 program dovetails into our Career Services because
15 many of our interns, we've turned into externship
16 placement.
17 hand.

So the two of those folks work hand in

So when asked whether or not we have more

18 than one professional in the Career Services
19 Department, no, at that time we had a Career
20 Services director; but we also have an externship
21 director.

The two of those gentlemen work together,

22 as well as the faculty and administrator.
23

DEAN BUTTERFOSS:

Do they have an

24 administrative support?
25

DEAN MELDRUM:

They do.

As a matter of

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1 fact, they do.
2

DEAN BUTTERFOSS:

Dedicated to those

3 offices?
4

DEAN MELDRUM:

5 No, I would say, no.

Let me think about this.

We have one administrative

6 assistant per five faculty members. And they're all
7 pretty technologically savvy, so many of them don't
8 rely on the faculty assistants at all; others, as
9 you can imagine, rely upon them more heavily, and
10 then all of the administrators. I also have an
11 assistant as does Dean Beckman, so we don't rely
12 upon the faculty assistants to help us.
13

DEAN BECKMAN:

And I've got to tell you,

14 as part of our assessment we try to evaluate whether
15 those positions are over-tasked and so we're always
16 looking, well, should it be one per four, one per
17 three, or one per -- one per five is a pretty good
18 ratio compared to a lot of law schools.
19

DEAN O'BRIEN:

20

DEAN PIERCE:

We'll go to Raymond.
Dean, I have oftentimes been

21 heard to say -- I may my surprise some of my
22 colleagues with this on the Committee and the
23 Council -- I oftentimes say that who I admit into my
24 law school is not the ABA's business.
25

DEAN O'BRIEN:

Raymond, you need you to

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1 speak up, please.
2

DEAN PIERCE:

I said, Mr. Chairman, that I

3 oftentimes say that who I admit in my law school is
4 not the ABA's business; who I pass into the second
5 year and who I graduate is.

And I say that within

6 the context of the fact that I note that in some of
7 your documents here that you included my law school
8 with respect to LSAT scores. And it's fairly
9 accurate, and it's quite consistent with the
10 demographics of the population that we have bestowed
11 near Lincoln law school which, of course, is tied
12 and related to segregation of this country.
13

But I look at page 24 of your response and

14 refer to Findings of Fact 40, 41 and 42.

Our

15 academic dismissal policy is, if you don't have a
16 2.0 grade point average, you've got to go. No
17 questions asked.

No appeal.

18 don't have a 2.0, you're out.
19 out a year.

No nothing.

If you

And you have to sit

You can petition for readmission, and

20 the chance for getting in are very, very small.
21

I asked my associate dean of academic

22 affairs, I think in my first or second year as the
23 Dean of the law school -- they had brought a student
24 who at the end of the first semester had a 1.6 GPA
25 and the young man wanted to stick it out.

I asked

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1 my associate dean, I said, you know, what are the
2 odds?

He said, Dean, 1.7 is about it, because

3 usually by a person can -- they might be able to get
4 2.3, average it out and make it to the second year.
5 But I see you've given a 1.2, a person can actually
6 hit a 1.2 -- and maybe I'm reading this wrong -- a
7 1.25 and still have the chance of going into the
8 semester, unless I'm reading it wrong.

I just want

9 to know.
10

I mean, what evidence do you have, because

11 you didn't say it in here, what evidence do you have
12 that students at a 1.2 or a 1.3, or anywhere, can
13 actually hit a 2.8 the second semester to be able to
14 even out and be able to come there next year.

And,

15 actually, what my associate dean told me was true
16 because I'm in my seventh year now, and when I see
17 students with 1.6s, 1.7s, I tell them, you may want
18 to leave now so that you don't incur any more debt
19 and put yourself in a financial situation -- which I
20 feel I actually have an obligation to do.
21 mean,
22

what -- help me out.
DEAN BECKMAN:

So, I

What do you ask?

Sure.

A number of things.

23 First of all, what we started with was what most law
24 schools have, which is only if you get a 2.0; less
25 than a 2.0, you're on probation. And we have that.

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1 You get less than a 2.0 after your first semester,
2 then you're on probation for one semester; if you
3 can't bring it up, then you're gone.
4

We decided that -- again, as part of our

5 assessment mechanism -- that there were numbers
6 below which students could measure.

We had very

7 limited data, but we looked at the data.
8 at the grades.

We looked

You've had the benefit of a lot of

9 history, so now go back -- as you said, you asked
10 your associate dean -- go back and tell me what
11 works and doesn't work and he came up with a figure.
12

We looked at the limited data we had to

13 come up with a figure so that we could set a
14 particular score below which they're gone.

We did

15 that based on the data that we had, and we assess
16 that every single year to see where students are.
17 They're constantly -- if they're below a 2.0, as
18 part of that academic support, they're constantly
19 counseled -- it could be their advisor, it could be
20 Dean Meldrum -- but there's constant counseling on
21 where they are, what their numbers need to be and
22 that sort of thing.

We try to look at what

23 contributed to those grades.
24

I think once you admit them, you have a

25 really strong obligation to them, and we want to do

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1 everything in our power to make them successful.
2 They've got to be able to pass and they've got to be
3 able to pass the bar, and those are two different
4 things because we now measure outputs at the ABA
5 level.
6

Passing the bar is critical.
On the other hand, we want people to have

7 a fair shot and make sure that we have done
8 everything.

So they get that extra semester if

9 they're on probation, if they've

exceeded the 1.25.

10 It may be over time that we find, you know, academic
11 support works from a 1.7, but it doesn't work at a
12 1.699, and we may revise those numbers.
13

But what's important, I think, is that we

14 look at our history.

We look at our population.

We

15 see whether we're effective in our population
16 because our population isn't your population.

And

17 the things that you do in your school for academic
18 support that may be incredibly successful, may not
19 work at our school.
20

And I see, you know, my sister teaches at

21 Southern as an adjunct, and they're an APCU.
22 she's been there now for many, many years.

And
And I

23 talk with her about the academic support they have
24 there, and it's very different because, again, it's
25 a Southern Louisiana population that works for them,

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1 that may not work for the folks in the Appalachian
2 region.
3

So we try to do, you know -- what's

4 important is, I agree you.

We've got to look at it.

5 We've got to see what works and doesn't work. Even
6 when people are kicked out, if they try to get
7 readmitted -- and that's one of the issues that's
8 been in all the documents -- you know, these people,
9 and I've got stats on every one of them, but these
10 aren't people with a 1.5.

This is a 1.993.

11 that mean he should have been readmitted?

Does
Well, our

12 Committee had a hearing, listened to the evidence,
13 followed the policy, had specific findings that that
14 student met the criteria for readmission.

So there

15 was no one below a 1.8, nobody that was readmitted.
16 So that's not -- I don't know that that's actually
17 in the record.
18

DEAN PIERCE:

A 1.2, that not ground in

19 cement, you may change that?
20

DEAN BECKMAN:

Absolutely.

I don't think

21 you'd go down; but, yeah, absolutely, it could go
22 up.

Absolutely, if our data shows that people with

23 a 1.6 -- because that's the beauty of our process.
24 And the other thing that folds into that is this.
25 We have a very unique ability.

We could look at a

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1 student and say that student has done exceptionally
2 well on the assessment mechanisms daily, but bomb
3 the final.
4

Now, we've got to look and say, well, is

5 it because they don't understand what they're
6 learning or is it because we have test-taking issues
7 or is it because we have writing issues related to
8 exams.

We have more data than -- and, again, its

9 only limit in scope is time -- but that's an
10 incredible tool that over time will get us to what I
11 hope will be a very accurate number with regard to a
12 cut score for existing students they can't make it.
13

I don't want to keep them in if they can't

14 make it, there's no question; here's the thing
15 though, I don't want to kick them out if they can.
16 And it's a fine line, you know.

You may have kicked

17 somebody out with a 1.6 that could have made it; you
18 might have.
19

DEAN PIERCE:

20

DEAN BECKMAN:

But we don't want to.

21

DEAN MELDRUM:

Dean, if I could also say

22 at a

All the time.

1.25, when we first opened our doors, we

23 didn't have an automatic dismissal.

And just like

24 your associate dean spoke to you, I went to the
25 faculty and I said, we need to have a cutoff at

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1 which we don't give these folks an opportunity for
2 probation unless there's something extraordinary.
3 And what we found, we've never readmitted an
4 automatic dismissal.
5

We wanted to have, I guess that safety

6 valve in case something truly horrific happened
7 where this person actually had the capacity -- maybe
8 they had an automobile accident or were treated for
9 cancer, something like that -- but I'll tell you,
10 I've never seen it in the few short years we've been
11 there.

We've never readmitted anyone who got

12 automatically dismissed.
13

And those few students who have been

14 readmitted, they were very close to the 2.0.

And I

15 can tell you that I go back and forth to both the
16 Admissions Committee and the Readmissions Committee
17 and I tell them how these folks are doing that you
18 all saw fit to readmit -- let will tell you how
19 they're doing on their turning point, let me tell
20 you how they're doing on their midterms -- so that
21 they can make informed decisions, and we can learn
22 from them.
23

DEAN PIERCE:

24

DEAN O'BRIEN:

Thank you.
Did you have a question,

25 Pauline?

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MS. SCHNEIDER:

2 on that point.

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I just wanted to follow up

Just note that, obviously, you have

3 an experiment going on here and you've got a lot of
4 things that had to take into account and a lot of
5 things you want to value, but there's so much data
6 on what or how successful a student is at certain
7 levels of performance.

So even as you want to help

8 people, it seems to me that you're adding an
9 additional burden to the school to be willing to
10 accept or readmit or allow the student to remain at
11 1.25 when the chances are extraordinary that they
12 will be able to succeed.
13

The other point is, they're probably

14 incurring debt along the way and so it's sort of a
15 burden, an additional burden you're putting on the
16 student because if they get dismissed, they may be
17 fortunate enough to have gotten a grant or have
18 money to pay their way through law school but many
19 of them don't, and so they're going to have an
20 additional burden and they have failed.

They have

21 failed out of school and they have the burden of
22 debt, and you're telling me they're in Appalachia
23 and their prospects for employment are very
24 difficult.

So you're adding to -- you're creating

25 additional problems, it seems to me.

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DEAN BECKMAN:

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Well, I think that first of

2 all, we have to reflect upon the fact that many of
3 our students, we believe, fulfill our mission to
4 serve the people of Appalachia.

And we believe that

5 they should have the opportunity for an education.
6 And we know these students and we get to know these
7 students.

It's a small cohort of students, and we

8 get to know them at a very deep level.

And we can -

9 - it's not to mean that we can devine whether
10 they'll succeed or not, but what we do is a great
11 deal of counseling with them.

We do debt

12 counseling, a lot of it, so that they understand
13 what it means to be in debt.
14 from the beginning to the end.

They've got to do it
It's required that

15 they go to debt counseling, so they understand what
16 that means.
17

Again, there isn't a Standard that says

18 your cut score need to be -- if they don't get a 1.5
19 or a 1.7, you should kick them out.

The question is

20 whether or not we meet the Standards as written, and
21 we do we.

We do.

22 scores like that.

Most schools don't have cut
I don't -- I don't, you know,

23 we've looked at lots and lots and lots of academic
24 policies.
25

And there are schools, such Dean Pierce's,

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1 that have cut scores and there are many schools -2 most schools do not; so it wouldn't necessarily be
3 fair to say, well, you've got to have a cut score.
4 I think that exceeds the Standards.

That said, if

5 we need to increase it, we'll increase it.

We

6 didn't have one; we said that we needed one, we
7 added one.

We need to bump it up, we'll absolutely

8 bump it up if we can find, in fact, our students
9 don't succeed.
10

But the advantage that we have is students

11 actually learn earlier, in some cases. You think
12 about it.

We've had students that at the end of

13 their midterms, they didn't well, they did poorly.
14 They may not have done well on the interactive
15 piece.

And they've come and they've said, you know,

16 I'm not sure this is right for me. So we've talked
17 about it, like if it's not right for you, that's
18 okay.

So we've had that happen. That's a huge

19 benefit.
20

When most of us went to law school, we

21 didn't know the answer until we got our final exam
22 grade halfway into the next semester.
23 happen here.

That doesn't

It doesn't happen at all. Does that

24 answer your question, ma'am?
25

MS. SCHNEIDER:

Yes.

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DEAN O'BRIEN:

1
2 questions?

Okay.

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Are there any other

Dean, our timekeeper, Ms.

3 Schrage, tells me you have 39 seconds; if you need
4 up to two minutes, we certainly would be happy to
5 accommodate that, but it's time for us to ask you to
6 close.
7

DEAN BECKMAN:

Thank you, Chairman

8 O'Brien, I appreciate that very much.

I think that

9 what I need to say is that we are in substantial
10 compliance with each of the Standards, with a plan
11 leading to full compliance within three years.

And

12 that's the bottom line.

We do meet our burden.

13 have met the standards.

We've built a good school.

We

14 That's what I'm supposed to say.
15

What I'm not supposed to say is that the

16 decision that this body makes today will have a
17 profound effect on some phenomenal students, people
18 you don't know, you don't see; we do.
19 burden.
20 facts.

We've met our

It's your obligation to review all of the
We've given them to you, review them, we

21 stand upon them and reach your decision.
22

Thank you.

23

DEAN O'BRIEN:

Thank you, Dean. We'll ask

24 the Committee to remain in place as you show
25 yourselves out.

Thank you very much.

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(Whereupon, Exhibits 1 through 18, plus

2 the two handouts were retained by the ABA as these
3 had been previoulsy provided electronically.)
4

(Meeting concluded at 1:15 p.m.)

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CERTIFICATE

2
3

I, Valerie R. Allard, do hereby certify that pursuant

4 to the Rules of Civil Procedure, the witness named herein
5 appeared before me at the time and place set forth in the
6 caption herein; that at the said time and place, I
7 in stenotype all testimony adduced and other oral
8 proceedings had in the foregoing matter; and that the
9 foregoing transcript pages constitute a full, true and
10 correct record of such testimony adduced and oral
11 had and of the whole thereof.
12
13

IN WITNESS HEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this

14 8th day of December, 2011.
15
16
17
18
19
20 /Signed

____

21 Valerie R. Allard
22
23
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25

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