April 22-26

This week, I read how Astin's theory of student involvement relates to student's use of Facebook. One of the tenets of Astin's theory is that involvement requires physical and psychological energy. College students use Facebook a lot and research has been conducted that looks at length and frequency of time that students use Facebook during the week. It is clear that students are invested in Facebook. Another tenet is that involvement occurs along a continuum. On Facebook, students can be more or less involved in all of the functions that the social media site offers. The third tenet is involvement has qualitative and quantitative features, meaning student use of Facebook can be measured quantitatively (how often do students use Facebook) or qualitatively (how does using Facebook affect your school work). Development is proportional to quality and quantity of involvement, the fourth tenet, has not been examined in relation to Facebook. We do not know how Facebook affects the development of students. Educational effectiveness is related to capacity to increase involvement, which is the fifth tenet, means that Facebook and other online tools need to be assessed for involvement and effectiveness. There is question whether Facebook should be used for faculty and student interaction. From my point of view, I don't think Facebook would be the most ideal location for faculty and students to interact. I think a Facebook profile is personal, and although the pages may not be set to private, I think that Facebook could alter the way a faculty member views a student or vise versa. However, I think that Facebook could be used in very smart ways, such as finding students like you that are interested in similar things or it could bring students together who are in the same class to study. Thus, I think we need more research on the topic to determine in what ways Facebook could be maximized for student use. I predict that it will be difficult to measure these issues.

At DGS, I finished all of the slides for the TV lobby, preparing them for summer. I also brainstormed ways that Pre-Law could enhance the internship experience for future graduate students. I went to two staff meetings and also worked with a friend on transferring the playlist for the CDs into iTunes. I had the final supervision for the internship class so I got the chance to reflect on my experiences as a pre-law intern. Overall, I have enjoyed working at Pre-Law. Updating the TV lobby sign actually wasn't too boring and I enjoyed designing different slides. It gave me the chance to be creative. However, I don't think that social media is my strong suit. I think there are other people more innovative to do that job. My recommendations and final reflections will come in next week's blogpost.

Heiberger, G. & Harper, R. (2008). Have you facebooked Astin lately? Using technology to increase student involvement. New Directions for Student Services, Winter 2008(124), 19-35.

April 15-19

This week at DGS and Pre-Law, I did most of the usual activities: updating social media, attending staff meetings, updating and making edits to the newsfeed, and putting together visually appealing slides for the TV lobby. I also went to a pre-law workshop on the topic of preparing resumes and personal statements for law applications. I thought the presentation was very informative (and well-attended despite the awful weather). The pre-law advisor did a nice job of giving specifics. I gave her on critique afterwards because about 3/4 of the presentation was about the personal statements and the resumes seemed tacked on at the end. I just told her to clarify at the beginning of the presentation why she has broken the presentation down like that so that the students understand and do not feel like resumes were an after thought. I also am working on getting the CDs made for the  advisors. I helped the Pre-Law intern divide up law school look books also. There is a small pre-law waiting area with pre-law look books that students can get information from. We get so many every year but they are becoming pointless because most of the books can now be found online. I helped the intern organize them . It seemed like a waste to have so many look books when students can find them online. Plus, it seems very expensive for the schools to create and distribute.

I spent about 12 hours this week at DGS, Pre-Law, reading, and blogging.

This week I read about a class that incorporates content and theory with civic engagement. As a part of the class, the students have to go watch public court cases and reflect on all aspects of the experience. It is up to them to navigate the courtroom and the proceedings and how to figure out when and where to go to observe. Students report having learned a great deal from this experience and many students earned an internship directly from observing because they met public defenders, judges, etc. while observing. Many students were surprised at how welcomed they were by people who work with the courts. This type of class is the exact example I discussed in my book report. Students reported that they learned whether they wanted to pursue law or not, and I think a real-world experience like this class offered is something that UIUC should implement. The director of Pre-Law now does a course similar to this, but more students should have access to the opportunities to learn in a real-world context and be able to apply what they learn in the classroom to that opportunity. Unrelated to this article, this type of course could also improve relationships between the university and the community, which is good for the reputation of the school.


McLauchlan, J. S. (2011). The courtroom as classroom: Integrating civic engagement in public law courses. Journal for Civic Commitment, 17, 1-17. 

April 8-12

This week at DGS, I went to two staff meetings and met with two of the advisors about the social media and news items that DGS has implemented this semester. We discussed that DGS would do a big push in the fall to get students connected to the social media pages rather than getting the word out slowly over the summer. I am going to prepare some twitter posts that DGS could use this summer or throughout next semester that would hopefully lessen the job of the next person who takes over this job. I told them that the social media job actually takes longer than they would expect so having an advisor do it would be a lot f work. We briefly talked about having an undergraduate intern do the social media for the office. The goal is to streamline the advisor's efforts. They each create newsletters every week but the newsfeed is in hopes of replacing all of their duplicate efforts. Per usual, I kept up with the newsfeed and calendar. After the meeting with advisors, I went back and made edits to these tools based off of the feedback from the advisors. Last week I also asked the advisors if they have been using the newsfeed or calendars. Only a handful were at the meeting but none of them had been using it. This was somewhat of good news because I noticed that our calendar of events was getting a lot of hits, which means the advisors that weren't there are using the calendar a lot or students are using it. I think students are using it a lot because some events have over 200 views. This is really good news moving forward with the calendar. I emailed web services to ask them about how to change some of the webtool settings if possible so I will be working with a student on that.

I also am in charge of putting together a CD of relaxing music for the advisors. As a part of the CARE committee, I brought up the idea of making a playlist that advisors can use when they are stressed. This idea was presented to the CARE committee last semester but I am being asked to make it now. I also am updating the TV in the lobby to welcome students for the summer. This week I spent around 12 hours at DGS working on the various projects and reading/blogging.

Olivas (2005) argues that low enrollments of minority students into law school is like a river, rather than a pipeline or pool, because when schools provide resources, become creative and willing to chance, much like how rivers transport nutrients and change over time, then we will see better outcomes in enrollment opportunities. Olivas (2005) talks about the enrollment numbers for law school compared to med school and business school and it is just so interesting that less then ten years ago, law school applicant numbers were doing so well and now they are so low. I feel like the law profession has changed drastically since this article was written. Further, different policies and demographic changes  are said to affect the flow of the river of minority students into law schools such as costs, debt, career options and the heavy reliance on LSAT scores because minority students historically do not perform as well on the LSAT. Olivas (2005) argues that the education system will not be able to grow if we do not take time to properly educate these students. I found this interesting because while educating them properly certainly needs to be done, there is no mention of changing the exam or eliminating its use or the problems that the LSAT raises for students of color. I would be interested to see Kezar's deconstruction and reconstruction of admissions policies and programs for students.


Olivas, M. A. (2005). Law school admissions after Grutter: Student bodies, pipeline theory, and the river. Journal of Legal Education, 55(1), 16-27. 

April 1-5

This week in Pre-Law and DGS, I maintained twitter, facebook, the news feed and the DGS calendar. I also read about CollegeConnect, a program that Pre-Law was thinking of bringing to campus for students. This program is very new but is attempting to help students network and get outside of their comfort zone. There is a curriculum attached to the program but it is in its early stages of implementation nation wide. Also, I watched a webinar on financial aid given by Heather Jarvis, who is a nationally acclaimed expert in student financial aid. She gave this webinar to illinois students back in March but made it available for a month. She walked through different financial aid options for law students and financial aid repayment options and the costs of law school. I found her presentation to be incredibly informative and something all students should have to watch, regardless if the student is going to law school. I learned a lot about student loans. After talking and reading about financial aid literacy in 574, this webinar is something that could be implemented into a literacy course or program. I also went to the staff meetings this week and the DGS staff meeting brought in the advisors in the Art and Design program, which I was thankful for because those majors are hard to advise students on, especially students in DGS. I found out that some students in engineering or pre-med want to do art minors because there is something called "medical art" or something to that extent or they want to illustrate for medical textbooks. I didn't even know that existed and I will come across students in my advising position that might want art in their curriculum so the advisors were very helpful in explaining their program.

YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are amongst the most popular forms of social media but YouTube is most often used in higher education. Social media has been implemented into classrooms and it is being used as a communication forum for students and instructors but there is still a gap in knowledge about social media. Also, social media has the potential to overwhelm students with information, a lot of time must be put into social media, when there is an online presence of an educational entity, there is a loss of control over what is posted and communicated, and since any service can create a Facebook page, there may be misinformation across groups or students might get the same information several times but from different groups. The lack of research regarding social media and higher education has left educators confused about how best to reach students in the ways that students want to be reached.This article speaks directly to my own frustrations. From the research I have gathered, nobody actually has a formula for how social media should work and practices that are most effective in higher education.When asked at the beginning of the semester to discover the social media problem and determine how best to reach students, I knew I was asked a loaded question. I am a student and I don't even know. I only have my opinion about how I get information, which could be totally different from other students. Some students follow blogs, some don't. Large-scale nationwide research needs to be conducted to determine the problem, using myself as a case study wouldn't help. I also do not think that a solution to the problem is using many social media sites in hopes of reaching the most students.

I also read about Speech/Communication departments and whether this major is adequately preparing students for law school. Communication is a main skill that law schools are looking for but the law schools admit that the departments are not preparing the students well enough for law school. Law school admissions deans and advisors in communication/speech departments  filled out surveys and the two entities agreed that lawyers should be able to relate to others, work with differing opinions, and be articulate and forceful in their communication styles.They also both thought that critical analysis and logical reasoning were skills undergrads should have when they graduate. Interpersonal and negotiation skills were also important to both groups but more important for the Communication departments. Also, oral advocacy skills was more important to the Communications department and not important to law schools. A major problem that is discovered in this study is that law schools do not think Speech/Communication majors are prepared for law school while the Speech/Communication advisors do they their students gain skills for law school. The author gives some recommendations based on the findings: law schools and Speech/Communication advisors need to communicate about the major and what is expected of law students, advisors must give the reality of the major to students in that it might not be beneficial for them if they are looking to go to law school, and more research should be conducted. This article is old so I would hope by this point that departments and law schools are talking to each both about what is expected of perspective law students. The pre-law advisors talk to students about appropriate majors, but they talk more so about the skills that students must gain. The dean that visited from Loyola's law schools said that over 50 different undergrad majors were represented in the law students their school had. That is impressive and encouraging. This article also gets me thinking about how students must be prepared for law school in the classroom and I wonder how much faculty would care if they are promoting these skills. I imagine that some faculty will value certain skills over others and are they really trying to get students ready for law school? I see that there might need to be some potential buy in so that professors are on board with efforts to develop students who would be ready for law school.

 Ratliff, A. F. (2011). Are they listening? Social media on campuses of higher education. Journal of the Australian & New Zealand Student Services Association, 38, 65-69.
Matlon, R. J. (1990). Perspectives on academic advising for pre-law students: View from law schools and the speech/communication discipline. ACA Bulletin, 73, 29-38. 

This week, I spent 2 hours and 15 minutes in  staff meetings, 10 minutes finishing up the pre-law flyer, 2 hours reading and blogging, 40 minutes updating the TV in the lobby, 1 hour and 15 minutes posting to social media, 40 minutes reading through CollegeConnect, 2 hours posting to the News Feed and webtools calendar, 1 hour and 15 minutes listening to the webinar