Welcome back! I hope everyone's summer treated them well! Now that the new school year is upon us, you'll be hearing more from me via this blog. Here is some news from the SBA:
First, 2L Representative Frank Schultz is organizing the Big/Little Program. For those of you that don't know, 1Ls that opt into the program are assigned a 2L or 3L big buddy to help them with their initial transition to the law school experience. If you are a 1L that would like to opt into the program, or an upperclassmen who has some free time and is willing to meet with their littles and dispense some friendly advice, please send Frank an e-mail at fwschult@camden.rutgers.edu. A reception to meet with the littles will be held Wednesday, August 26, at 3:45 pm for those of you that can make it.
Second, the SBA has secured 250 tickets to the Camden Riversharks game on Thursday, August 20th. The game starts at 7:05pm, but there is an all-you-can-eat-and-drink special “Yuengs and Wings Night” which runs at the stadium from 6-8pm. There is a $15 charge for the special (purchased inside the stadium) which is completely separate from our FREE tickets. We will be attending the Orientation BBQ tomorrow at 12:30pm where we will be handing out tickets to all who are interested in attending the game. If you are not able to be at the BBQ but still want to come to the game, e-mail SBA President Sandy Budd directly at sbapresident@camlaw.rutgers.edu, and he can make arrangements to get tickets to you at the gate.
Third, there is a Welcome Back Party being held at The Victor’s Pub (located at 1 Market Street, facing the Delaware River and Ben Franklin Bridge) on Friday the 21st, starting at 8pm.
For more information, go to the Facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=128559121032
That's all I have for now. I hope everyone has a great start to their Fall semester!
-Callan Wright, SBA Secretary
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Meeting with Chancellor Pritchett
I had the opportunity to meet with Chancellor Pritchett this afternoon. With Chancellor Pritchett being new to Rutgers-Camden, the purpose of the meeting was for him to get an overview of the concerns and needs of the law school in addition to the general Rutgers-Camden community.
Chancellor Pritchett is getting acquainted with his new job by listening and learning how the responsibilities are broken down on our campus. He is living by the maxim of "do no harm" while learning the ropes. He has seen that there needs to be greater campus-wide communication and coordination. He is also looking to grow both the undergrad and MBA student population. Lastly, one of his main goals for this year is simply to be around and visible in the Rutgers-Camden community. He wants to participate as much as possible in the events and activities of the law school.
Other Specific Topics of Note:
1. Gym. The gym should be open for student use on or about August 17th. There is still work that needs to be done to the main gymnasium and until that is complete, the school cannot obtain a permanent certification of occupancy.
2. Parking. The dirt lot near the law school will soon become faculty/staff parking. Unfortunately, the other lot next to the school will remain faculty/staff parking. Students with parking passes may park in faculty lots beginning at 4:45pm. Spots can be purchased in the garage near the bookstore and if there is enough interest, the school is willing to negotiate a lower "student price" which they have done in the past.
3. Director of Civic Engagement. There will be a new position at Rutgers-Camden whose job will be coordinating with the community and school.
Less than a month until school starts... Enjoy your summer while you still can.
-Sandy Budd, SBA President
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Dean's Breakfast
Hey everyone, I’m Callan Wright and I am the SBA Secretary for the 2009-2010 school year. I will be taking over primary responsibilities for this blog.
One of the goals of the current SBA is increased communication between the E-Board and the faculty. To that end, we’ve been working on scheduling meetings with the faculty so we can talk to them about their plans for the law school and inform them about students’ thoughts and concerns. Earlier this month, the current E-Board (along with Leslie McGeoch, one of our 2L reps), sat down with Deans Ferzan, Baker, and Solomon, as well as with Alison Nissen, the head of the Academic Success Program, for a breakfast meeting. We had a really good talk with the deans and I wanted to let you all know what we discussed.
Dean Baker is currently planning to work with the SBA Ethics Committee and is also working on a task force to address student concern with the current economic situation.
Dean Solomon informed us that the law school is in the planning stages of launching a new website, so keep an eye out for that.
One of the concerns we raised to the deans was the large amount of e-mails the law students receive on a daily basis, and how a lot of students delete most of them due to the sheer volume. First, we'd like to stress that some of those e-mails are sent to the entire Camden campus and the law school has no control over them. In regards to law school e-mails, one of the solutions Sandy proposed was putting the law school announcements on the LCD TVs in the law school. Currently, some announcements are put on the LCD TVs, but they require individual students to scroll through them. Apparently, a large LCD TV will be installed on the law school bridge and Sandy proposed dedicating that one to the announcement of law school activities and meetings. Sandy suggesting setting the board to scroll automatically, thus eliminating the need for people to manually scroll through it. Another suggestion raised by the faculty was putting the announcements in blog format. We would like student feedback on this, so feel free to contact one of the E-Board members about your ideas.
The E-Board is also working with the faculty to streamline and organize student activities. As many of you have noticed, there are often several activities you would like to attend, but they all seem to happen on the same date and time. The planning is the in early stages, but the SBA is hoping to help student organizations schedule activities earlier and more efficiently, and to better publicize their events.
One issue that Dean Solomon wanted to address the shooting that occurred on 5th Street a few weeks ago. Some students were angry that the Rutgers emergency text message system wasn’t utilized to warn students. Dean Solomon stated that the text message system wasn’t implemented because both the Campus Police and Camden Police advised him that the campus didn’t need to be locked down, as they already had the suspect in custody. The altercation was isolated and between two individuals who had no connection with the law school or any interest in harming the students. The SBA would like to stress to you that any school in an urban area, whether it be Temple or Penn, has safety concerns. We encourage you to be vigilant and mindful of your own safety.
When it comes to professor evaluations, Dean Ferzan advised us that they would not be opened up again for post-exam evaluations. No new evaluation questions have been written for the Spring term. This feature will be incorporated for Fall 2009 classes.
Alison Nissen also shared some news for us from the Academic Success Program. For those of you concerned about lower Bar passage rates, Alison informed us that for those who took the New Jersey Bar Exam in February, the passage rate of Rutgers students was 80%. We don’t know yet where this places us amongst other schools, but based on past information, this would place us in or near the top. While it should be noted that the February exam has a smaller number of takers, we have improved over previous years—our school’s NJ bar passage rate for the February 2007 exam was 71%.
Alison also shared with us the myriad of programs and services the Academic Success Program offers for all students. These services range from basic brief writing for 1Ls to Bar Exam prep for 3Ls. While the amount of services offered is too numerous to list and expound upon in an already-lengthy blog post, I encourage anyone who is having academic trouble to contact Alison for help. From what I gathered at our meeting, her door is always open to students.
Well, that’s it for me. I hope everyone is having a great summer! As the summer goes on, look for more updates on this blog. Add us to you RSS feed or follow us on Twiter at http://twitter.com/RULawCamdenSBA
-Callan
One of the goals of the current SBA is increased communication between the E-Board and the faculty. To that end, we’ve been working on scheduling meetings with the faculty so we can talk to them about their plans for the law school and inform them about students’ thoughts and concerns. Earlier this month, the current E-Board (along with Leslie McGeoch, one of our 2L reps), sat down with Deans Ferzan, Baker, and Solomon, as well as with Alison Nissen, the head of the Academic Success Program, for a breakfast meeting. We had a really good talk with the deans and I wanted to let you all know what we discussed.
Dean Baker is currently planning to work with the SBA Ethics Committee and is also working on a task force to address student concern with the current economic situation.
Dean Solomon informed us that the law school is in the planning stages of launching a new website, so keep an eye out for that.
One of the concerns we raised to the deans was the large amount of e-mails the law students receive on a daily basis, and how a lot of students delete most of them due to the sheer volume. First, we'd like to stress that some of those e-mails are sent to the entire Camden campus and the law school has no control over them. In regards to law school e-mails, one of the solutions Sandy proposed was putting the law school announcements on the LCD TVs in the law school. Currently, some announcements are put on the LCD TVs, but they require individual students to scroll through them. Apparently, a large LCD TV will be installed on the law school bridge and Sandy proposed dedicating that one to the announcement of law school activities and meetings. Sandy suggesting setting the board to scroll automatically, thus eliminating the need for people to manually scroll through it. Another suggestion raised by the faculty was putting the announcements in blog format. We would like student feedback on this, so feel free to contact one of the E-Board members about your ideas.
The E-Board is also working with the faculty to streamline and organize student activities. As many of you have noticed, there are often several activities you would like to attend, but they all seem to happen on the same date and time. The planning is the in early stages, but the SBA is hoping to help student organizations schedule activities earlier and more efficiently, and to better publicize their events.
One issue that Dean Solomon wanted to address the shooting that occurred on 5th Street a few weeks ago. Some students were angry that the Rutgers emergency text message system wasn’t utilized to warn students. Dean Solomon stated that the text message system wasn’t implemented because both the Campus Police and Camden Police advised him that the campus didn’t need to be locked down, as they already had the suspect in custody. The altercation was isolated and between two individuals who had no connection with the law school or any interest in harming the students. The SBA would like to stress to you that any school in an urban area, whether it be Temple or Penn, has safety concerns. We encourage you to be vigilant and mindful of your own safety.
When it comes to professor evaluations, Dean Ferzan advised us that they would not be opened up again for post-exam evaluations. No new evaluation questions have been written for the Spring term. This feature will be incorporated for Fall 2009 classes.
Alison Nissen also shared some news for us from the Academic Success Program. For those of you concerned about lower Bar passage rates, Alison informed us that for those who took the New Jersey Bar Exam in February, the passage rate of Rutgers students was 80%. We don’t know yet where this places us amongst other schools, but based on past information, this would place us in or near the top. While it should be noted that the February exam has a smaller number of takers, we have improved over previous years—our school’s NJ bar passage rate for the February 2007 exam was 71%.
Alison also shared with us the myriad of programs and services the Academic Success Program offers for all students. These services range from basic brief writing for 1Ls to Bar Exam prep for 3Ls. While the amount of services offered is too numerous to list and expound upon in an already-lengthy blog post, I encourage anyone who is having academic trouble to contact Alison for help. From what I gathered at our meeting, her door is always open to students.
Well, that’s it for me. I hope everyone is having a great summer! As the summer goes on, look for more updates on this blog. Add us to you RSS feed or follow us on Twiter at http://twitter.com/RULawCamdenSBA
-Callan
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Congratulations to the new EBoard
President-elect: Sandy Budd
Vice President-elect: Dave Tauster
Treasurer: Amanda Harber
Secretary: Callan Wright
Callan will be taking over primary responsibilities for this blog and we may attempt to move it to the Rutgers website. But for now, stay tuned...
Thanks for everyone who voted and support the SBA,
Sandy Budd
Friday, April 3, 2009
UVA Awaits...
Good Morning,
I woke up too early for the UVA trip. We're leaving at 10 and I decided that 7:30 would be an appropriate time to wake up. With that misconception firmly squashed, I have some free time on my hands and I thought I would check in with my much neglected blog.
Thanks to Amanda for taking the invitation and opportunity to post some thoughts. In the spirit of creativity, I am going to try to "respond" to her post and perhaps begin a trend of this blog being a place where the students can read EBoard candor. As always, please indulge me and send comments, I am still new and love ideas for improvement.
#1 - Law Revue, April 17th
With Mr. Law School being such a success, the SBA Fundraising Committee (chaired by Amanda) set their sights on recreating it but focused on the talent portion (over the humor). I don't yet know much of the details but I could not be more excited for Mike Peacock on the mic. Come out and support your fellow students.
#2 - Ethics Committee
I agree that Jen is doing excellent job. I think academic integrity is an important topic because it plays such a large role in our law school life and I doubt many students have actually taken the time to read the University Policy. Please take the time to peruse it. Dean Baker will be the correct person to direct any questions to at the Non-Academic Deans Forum on April 16th.
#3 - Budget Guidelines
Amanda was the drafter, and while I have not yet had the time to read the guidelines she wrote, these have been the work of many budget meetings and discussions both last year and this year. These guidelines (and others) will be reveiwed by the Rules and Oversight Committee within the next week and then refined over the summer. Once the final drafts are approved, the committee will then choose which ones (if any) we would like to present for approval to the SBA Council. If I am elected President, I will make sure that the student body stays informed about any and all proposed changes which may impact their law school career. These policies will be made available for review and SBA meetings are open to all students. I hope to make agendas public before all SBA meetings
#4 - Outstanding Reimbursements
Amanda wants to make sure you get your money. I have reimbursements in my wallet that I have not taken care of from January. This is unacceptable, we could all use some extra money, so let's make sure we get our money. Put it on your schedule for Monday.
Hopefully my next post will be sooner rather than later.
-Sandy, VP
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Fundraising, Ethics, and so much more.
Hey everyone,
Just a few updates from your friendly treasurer - if you read this blog, you'll actually know these things a day or two before the greater student body.
#1 A fundraiser is coming your way. Save the date for April 17, in which Rutgers Camden will host a "Law Revue" of the talented. It will be emceed by the one and only Mike Peacock (I'll leave it to him to make up a clever slogan). Cost: $7, and the proceeds go DIRECTLY back to the SBA budget, which goes to student groups, who spend it on the awesome programs that they put on.
#2 There's an ethics committee. Jen Budd is the chair of it, and she is doing an excellent job so far. So, if you're thinking about ethics in our school, she's a good person to get in touch with.
#3 Budget guidelines have been submitted to the Rules & Oversight Committee to review. That means that if you are a rising student organization e-board member, next year, when planning your budget requests, you'll have a clear picture of what kind of events the SBA is hoping to fund.
#4 I'm leaving the state for the summer, and I want to make sure that if you spent your own money on behalf of your group, you get it back in your pocket before I leave! So, by all means, drop it off in my mailbox, email me, whatever it takes, we'll get it done. My email is aharber@camden.rutgers.edu.
Just a few updates from your friendly treasurer - if you read this blog, you'll actually know these things a day or two before the greater student body.
#1 A fundraiser is coming your way. Save the date for April 17, in which Rutgers Camden will host a "Law Revue" of the talented. It will be emceed by the one and only Mike Peacock (I'll leave it to him to make up a clever slogan). Cost: $7, and the proceeds go DIRECTLY back to the SBA budget, which goes to student groups, who spend it on the awesome programs that they put on.
#2 There's an ethics committee. Jen Budd is the chair of it, and she is doing an excellent job so far. So, if you're thinking about ethics in our school, she's a good person to get in touch with.
#3 Budget guidelines have been submitted to the Rules & Oversight Committee to review. That means that if you are a rising student organization e-board member, next year, when planning your budget requests, you'll have a clear picture of what kind of events the SBA is hoping to fund.
#4 I'm leaving the state for the summer, and I want to make sure that if you spent your own money on behalf of your group, you get it back in your pocket before I leave! So, by all means, drop it off in my mailbox, email me, whatever it takes, we'll get it done. My email is aharber@camden.rutgers.edu.
Monday, March 23, 2009
March 23, 2009 - Welcome Back
Welcome Back from Spring Break!
My first day back began with a bang so indulge me for a moment while I muse about some established facts and complete opinions from the office of the VP...
Today the SBA EBoard had its monthly breakfast meeting with the Deans (only Solomon and Baker, unfortunately Ferzan could not join us). I will discuss some of what we talked about as well as other happenings of importance.
First: Academic Dean's Forum (Ferzan) - Thursday March 26th 12:30 - 2:00 in Room 106
Come and bring your academic questions, comments, and concerns.
Topics will include (but are not limited to):
Attendance Policy
Grade Distributions
Examination Methods
2009-2010 Curriculum and Fall Registration
Hunter Moot Court (shift in program)
A Non-Academic Dean's Forum (Solomon and Baker) is currently in the works.
Second: Cafe Information
Service Items (when open):
Breakfast - danish, bagels, coffee, etc.
Lunch - grab-n-go sandwiches and salads (with specialized orders)
Third: Proposed Student Fee Increase
There will be a referrendum on one of the Spring Ballots involving whether or not the raise the student fee by $10, thus increasing the SBA/Student Org budget. This money was removed last year as an unused Yearbook Fee and the referredum will offer the students a choice whether we should reinstitute that money for general use.
Fourth: SBA Webpage: https://camlaw.rutgers.edu/cms/student-bar-association
Check out your current SBA Council and the SBA Constitution
The RULaw webpage should be getting a facelift in the immediate future
Fifth: Student Honor Court
The SBA Ethics Committee (chair: Jen Budd) is currently looking into our Code of Conduct and other academic regulations. The idea of having a student-based honor court has been placed on the table and if you have any ideas, please feel free to share them.
That is all for now, I really hope people read this.
-Sandy Budd, VP
Questions, Comments, Concerns: ambudd@gmail.com
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