This week at DGS and Pre-Law, I went to a Financial Aid presentation. The presentation was given by two Financial Aid advisors and it was incredibly informative. They talked about the "Satisfactory Academic Progress" (SAP) that students must be making towards a degree or else their aid was taken away from them. The policies and petition processes involved in SAP were discussed. This presentation was specifically for advisors across campus. I also posted news to the DGS newsfeed and webtools calendar. Both systems are not intuitive and are difficult to make aesthetically pleasing, so I worked with the honors director to attempt to improve the way that it looks. The webtools calendar and news feed went live this week so now at least the work I put in to it will be seen. I also updated the Pre-Law and DGS webpages with relevant news and pertinent deadlines. With the help of the pre-law advisor, we crafted a message to the admitted students inviting them to join the Pre-Law facebook page.(There is an admitted student U of I facebook page) We want more followers for Pre-Law on Facebook but asking the admitted students to join the page is tricky because the advisors get calls from parents wanting their freshman to meet with them. However, the freshman are not allowed to make an appointment until after they have gone to a pre-law orientation workshop. Therefore, we had to balance inviting them to join without suggesting that meeting with advisors is a good step to take. I worked with the pre-law advisor and graduate intern on getting information out to all advisors across campus about an upcoming webinar on financial aid I also attended the DGS and Pre-Law staff meetings. Finally, I updated the PowerPoint that plays in the CCAAS lobby (that thing is never 100% correct). One of the staff members showed me an article about a DGS student who is on the Illini Chess Team. The team made it to the national championships. I emailed this student to see if he is interested in being highlighted on the powerpoint. He has agreed, which is exciting.
I read Toward Promoting Diversity in Legal Education: A Model Program for At-Risk High School Students which discussed a program that was a collaboration between law students and high-school students. The law students would mentor the high-school students while introducing them to the law profession. This was in hopes of motivating these students to get through school and go to college.The 4 week program is called Law High. The program has not collected data to determine if it has been effective in its mission. They do not really want to gather data either because it would cost money, they do not want to put the students through the study, and they are not sure how they would define success in the program. I think it would be hard in the current economic environment for a program like this to be sustained over time without data to prove its worth. On the other hand, the program only costed $250 because the law school students volunteered their time. The $250 was spent on food for the high school students. I think this program is a great example of a way for universities and institutions to collaborate together, especially on such a low cost project. This article was written in 1999 and mentions issues of affirmative action, which, as we discussed in class, has been in the news recently. If diversity is an issue at the undergraduate level, then it most certainly must with law school applicants and attendees. I wonder how much a program like this helps to ameliorate the structural forces in place that disadvantages students of color in access to higher education. I think, like other programs, this is one that only breaks the surface. However, at the very least, some of these at-risk high school students will have heard for perhaps the first time, that they could be successful in college, and that could be exactly what one student needs to get to college.
I spent about 1 hour and 30 minutes at the Financial Aid presentation, 1 hour and 30 minutes in staff meetings, 1 hour and 30 minutes updating the PowerPoint and corresponding with the DGS student, 2 hours editing the news feed, 2 hours gathering information and preparing the webtools calendar, and 1 hour and 30 minutes doing social media outreach. I also spent 40 minutes reading and blogging.
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