Dear Alumni and Friends of Boston College Law School:
Boston College Law School is enjoying a remarkable year. We exceeded 7,200 applications
for admission to the Class of 2005, surpassing last year’s pool by more
than 1,500. The faculty we hired a year ago have brought more than we hoped
for to their classes and to enriching our community. The number of donors making
commitments of financial support to BC Law is up about 1,000 over last year’s
total. It is an exciting time.
In two years the Law School will celebrate its 75th anniversary. We’re
already making plans for that occasion, a significant one in our history. But
our primary focus is forward—into the future. If the Law School continues
on the trajectory it has followed since 1929, it will be an even more remarkable,
and possibly quite different, place ten years from now. We need to anticipate
what lies ahead and make plans accordingly. To that end, we recently began a
strategic planning process that we anticipate will occupy us for at least the
next year.
In law as in any business, if we want to be successful we have to ask ourselves:
Where are we? Where do we want to go? How do we get there? We are among the
top law schools in the United States, and that’s a very good place to be.
But we do not have tenure in that position. We must be vigilant to ensure our
place and, in fact, to better it.
Our Objectives
We have undertaken a strategic planning process with several
objectives in mind: 1) to reinforce our mission; 2) to address the implications
of teaching an ever-expanding body of law; 3) to further the quality of our
academic programs and the work of our faculty; 4) to anticipate long-term physical
plant and technological needs; and 5) to consider opportunities for enhancing
our financial resources and especially to improve fundraising.
Here’s a brief overview of these areas, to help you understand some of
what our strategic planning seeks to address.
1) Reinforcing the Law School’s defining characteristics and mission is
vital if we are to move forward with a purpose. From the Law School’s founding,
it has taken pride in and benefited from its Jesuit, Catholic heritage. The
strategic planning process compels us to ask how this perspective continues
to be defined in a law school setting and to examine how our Jesuit heritage
may enable BC Law to distinguish itself from its competitors. As we enter the
discussion, we must be mindful of two important considerations: One, we must
maintain our commitment to academic freedom, quality, and distinction. Two,
the characterization of who we are must be inclusive and resonate with the diverse
community of alumni, faculty, and students who have long been our strength.
2) The subject of law is growing at a very rapid rate, and through the years
our course offerings have grown substantially as the Law School has sought to
keep its curriculum current. When BC Law started there were 29 required courses
and 3 electives. By Fr. Robert Drinan’s time, we offered 56 elective courses.
Today’s students take seven required courses in the first year, and then
may choose from among nearly 150 electives in their upper years. The situation
raises a host of fundamental and critical questions for us. They range from
the basic, What should we teach? to the more nuanced, Where do we focus? How
much of everything should we try to teach? Can it or should it be done with
full-time faculty? If not, how do we strike a balance between full-time and
adjunct faculty? What impact does course growth have on our support systems,
such as library holdings, student services, and administrative staffing? And
on class size? Competition among law schools for top applicants demands low
faculty-student ratios. Indeed, small classes and individual attention are defining
features of the educational experience at Boston College Law School and are
an important part of our distinction. But how do we afford to keep that level
of intimacy and caring? Should we raise tuition, which is already high, or must
we admit more students and give up our character as a rather small law school?
The number of courses and the size of classes are one thing; the nature of our
curriculum and the quality of our academic programs and faculty are another.
The strategic planning process should guide us in determining where to place
our emphasis. It forces us to consider, for instance, how an increasingly global
marketplace has heightened interest among faculty, students, and employers in
the study of business and international law. Should we strengthen these—and
other popular—programs and, if so, what impact will that have on our ability
to address different legal specialties? We must examine other questions as well.
Are we fulfilling our belief in the importance and values of public interest
work and involvement? What should be the balance between traditional instruction
and clinical or other co-curricular experiences? There are many others.
3) Our faculty are the standard-bearers of the high-quality legal education
we offer. To encourage still greater levels of achievement among our scholars
means to find ever more effective ways to support their work. What can we do
to ensure that they have the time and resources they need to do their best teaching
and research? What will enable and inspire them to stay in the academic vanguard?
How do we place them in settings that will provide broad exposure for their
ideas and scholarship? Can we broadcast their achievements better? How do we
encourage their creativity in keeping our curriculum vibrant? Finding answers
to these questions is not only essential to maintaining an engaged and productive
faculty, but also to attracting top-ranking newcomers.
4) Our capacity for programmatic and systemic change is dependent in part on
our ability to adapt and expand the physical plant to accommodate new expectations
and needs. Completing the construction of the new Law Library in 1996 and the
East Wing in 1999 made dramatic improvements in the physical environment our
students, faculty, and staff enjoy. In the past two summers we have renovated
the Stuart House classrooms to bring them up to the standard of our new buildings.
Many of the improvements were technological; all our classrooms today have internet
connections, including wireless, and classes are taught with state-of-the-art
equipment.
As strategic planning addresses the question of an expanding curriculum that
I noted earlier, it must consider where more classes will be taught, where more
faculty can have offices, where student organizations can function effectively.
We must ask, for instance, where on our evolving list of priorities the proposed
renovations to the old Kenny Cottle Library and Stuart House should be put.
Beyond our campus other influences exert pressure on us. Skyrocketing housing
costs in the Boston area, for instance, are fueling calls for law student housing.
Strategic planning gives us the opportunity to ask whether affordable student
accommodations are or may become significant in attracting top-tier candidates
and, if so, what our response should be.
5) Visions of the future are just pipe dreams unless they are matched by a determination
to make them real. We cannot be a great law school on the cheap. The University
of which we are a part proved that for itself in the past few decades. Between
1970 and 2002 Boston College rose from a predominantly commuter school to a
renowned research university. During the same period its endowment grew from
literally nothing to more than $1 billion. These developments are intertwined.
As we devise a plan for BC Law, we will find useful lessons in the University’s
successful strategies.
Boston College Law School has been a remarkable overachiever. Among the top
50 law schools in America, every private school has a larger endowment than
we have. I am deeply troubled, for example, that we have only one endowed professorship.
Every private law school in the top 50, and most public ones, has more endowed
faculty positions than we do. In the competitive marketplace for retaining and
attracting the caliber of faculty we want and must have, we are at a distinct
disadvantage. Similarly, as we resolve to encourage faculty to be better scholars
and better teachers we must have the permanent resources to offer them the opportunity
to pursue those objectives. We must also confront the reality that our students
endure increasing financial strains to attend law school. We need to find reasonable
options for assisting them to attend BC Law. These are just some of the opportunities
to be addressed.
A Process of Self-definition
On the day we opened in 1929 it would have seemed the height of presumption
to dream of being one of the best law schools in America. But we have accomplished
that and more. Since the 1980’s we have appeared almost annually on the
U.S. News & World Report’s list of the 25 best law schools. This is
a position we cherish. Our strategic plan will not ask how to hold our current
position, but how to improve it. Why should we not aspire to be one of America’s
ten best?
I welcome your thoughts as we move forward with our strategic planning. There
will be a number of settings in which alumni will be invited to participate
in discussions, but that is obviously not practicable for all 9,300 of our graduates.
So please feel free to write me at the Law School or email me at garvey@bc.edu
to offer your thoughts and suggestions. I will be sure they get to the strategic
planning steering committee.
The process we have embarked on is not just one of study and understanding.
It is a process of self-definition. We can be who we want to be. In that creative
endeavor every member of this community will play a part. Your willingness to
invest your resources, both financial and intellectual, will make the difference
in how well we succeed.
Sincerely,
John H. Garvey
