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.
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