Monday began with Pilates with Claudia, as usual. At 10:00 a.m., there was a very important meeting with Chancellor-Elect Gearhart, the UA Executive Committee, Deans, members of the campus faculty and the faculty senate about the budget and what the upcoming budget looked like for the year at the University of Arkansas. At noon, I went to the Washington County Bar Association luncheon with Malcolm. The speakers were very interesting. They were the two candidates for the Arkansas Court of Appeals – Courtney Henry and Ron Williams. Both are alums of the University of Arkansas School of Law and we wish them well in the election race. It was good to be there to visit with the members of the Washington County Bar and to be able to hear the candidates’ presentations to the group. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to attend that luncheon.

After lunch I met with Chris Kelley and that was a very good meeting. There were a number of initiatives Chris will be working on for the law school, so thanks Chris for all you do, particularly for the ties you are building for the law school in the Ukraine. At 3:00 p.m. I met with Colleen Williams, one of our library faculty, and we had a good meeting as well. That meeting was immediately followed by a meeting with Professor Carl Circo, our most recently tenured faculty member. I’m certainly pleased to have Carl join the ranks of the tenured faculty in the law school and I had a good meeting with him as well.

At 7:00 p.m. I had dinner with Michelle McCall and Kedron Benham and we ate at our favorite place again, Taste of Thai. And you know what, foodies? I don’t remember what we had! I think I had Pad See Eu. I know we began with the chewy rolls and I can never remember if those are called spring or summer rolls. They gave me two wonderful books – “Miss Hickory” by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey and “A Place for You” by Paul Tournier. It’s wonderful to have their friendship, support and encouragement. What a nice way to end a very long day: with good friends and a quiet meal.

We were able to conclude all the business for our Board meeting on Friday afternoon, so Saturday was a free day. Peter Pashley and his daughter Charlotte invited Thorny Steele and me to go with them to Yellowstone National Park. We left bright and early at 8:30 a.m. in the morning, with Dean Kent Syverud and his wife Professor Ruth Chi-fen Chen following us in the car behind. The route to Yellowstone was interesting. Because some of the entrances to Yellowstone were not yet open for the season, we had to take a circuitous route.

We left from Wyoming, crossed the Tetons to Idaho, crossed briefly into Montana and then came back around into Wyoming in order to get to the West entrance of the park. On our way to Yellowstone we passed through Driggs, Idaho and Charlotte was able to find out more about it on her iPhone. Our initial impression passing through was that it was an interesting place and it turned out that it was more interesting than we knew. We learned a lot about it. It’s one of the top 100 artist communities in the United States. There’s a film school there and regular street theater. If you go to the internet and look up Driggs, Idaho the Chamber of Commerce website will share some of that. We didn’t stop in Driggs, but at least we could say that we stopped in Idaho.

We stopped in Ashton, Idaho for breakfast. The name of the restaurant was Criswell’s Trails Inn Restaurant and we ordered breakfast there. Our hotel shuttle driver from the day before told us that it was the absolute best place to have breakfast and boy, was he right. For you foodies out there if you ever get to Ashton, Idaho you must stop at Criswell’s and have breakfast. Apparently it’s pretty famous. There’s a huge map that asks you to identify where you are from, so we all put pins in the map. The breakfast was huge. Kent Syverud had a trout and egg breakfast with hashbrowns, and Thorny had a pancake, eggs and sausage breakfast and the pancake was the size of the plate. I had what was called the skillet scramble, which was egg, cheese and ham, and came with toast and a side of hashbrowns. It was thoroughly filling and delicious. After breakfast we headed out and got back on the road and headed to Yellowstone National Park.

When we entered the park we were greeted by a number of bison. In fact, I have a picture of one who walked right up to the car. Many of them were on the road and people had to stop and wait until they cleared the roadway. The first thing we did when we arrived at Yellowstone was get a map and head for the geyser, Old Faithful. We arrived a little before it was to erupt. The rangers give you a sense of when it will erupt, with about a half an hour between eruptions. So for example, the time will be posted and will indicate 10 minutes before or after a certain time. Since we knew we had a bit of a wait, we went into the science station to see the exhibits and souvenirs. We watched the film that is shown half an hour before the geyser is scheduled to erupt, which talked about all the geological features in the park.

I never realized how many interesting things were there in addition to the abundant wildlife. There are a number of geological features. These include hot springs with a number of colors in the run off channels. The colors occur because of the suspended minerals and the microscopic organisms that flock to the warm water. There were geysers, which periodically erupt (Old Faithful does) because of a large volume of hot water stored beneath the surface. There were also mud pots with acidic hot springs, which were like big pits of mud. The mud would kind of bubble because of the gas that was beneath the earth’s surface causing it try to break out. The gases escape through the wet clay mud and cause it to bubble and that’s called a mud pot. Then there was something called a fumarole. A fumarole is like a dry geyser. It’s a crack in the ground from which gas escapes and makes a whistling noise. You can find out more about these at the website for Yellowstone. It was pretty fascinating. We took the time during our visit to go and visit each of these features.

After we saw the geological features in that section of the park, we drove east so we could see the large canyon and it was amazing. I had never seen it before. I do have to say though that it was very difficult for me to walk right up to the rail and look down. I tended to take my pictures standing back a little bit. After that we drove so we could see the upper falls of the Yellowstone River and it was really beautiful. Once we had finished seeing all those sites it was pretty late in the day, so we got some gas and a few snacks and headed back to our hotel in Jackson Hole.

By the time we got back, we had worked up and appetite for dinner, so we headed to The Cadillac Grille in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The food was very good. It was Saturday night and the restaurant also has a big bar area. That was pretty rowdy and loud, so we sat in the dining area, which was a little bit smaller and quieter. The service was excellent and the food was great. For the foodies out there, I had an interesting starter- trout salad. It had smoked trout on top of various mixed greens, pears, and a champagne vinaigrette. It was very good… very unusual, but very good. Peter Pashley started with what was called won ton cigars. They were won tons rolled and then stuffed with cheese and shrimp. They looked yummy. His daughter started with a soup, a potato with chorizo and blue cheese soup. It looked pretty good. Thorny didn’t have an appetizer because he had the wild game grill, which was huge, so he didn’t want an appetizer. My entree was grilled mahi mahi with wild rice and grilled veggies. It was really well-prepared and seasoned. Peter had the bison steak and Charlotte had oysters. For dessert I had a tiramisu, Charlotte had raspberry sorbet, and Thorny had an interesting maple crème brulee. It was really a good meal. We got a chance to visit and relax a little bit after our day’s exploits. Then we headed back to the hotel and called it an evening before too long because we were all pretty pooped.

We began our board meeting at 9:00 a.m. and we had a lot of business to cover. The meeting was very efficient and we had time for a more thorough discussion of a number of issues. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before but the LSAC has a number of committees that carry out the work of the body in between the Board meetings. Let me share those committees with you – Jannell Lundy Roberts is Chair of what used to be called the Minority Affairs Committee, but has just been changed (as of this board meeting) to the Diversity Committee; Susan Krinsky chairs the Services and Programs Committee; Dean Chuck Goldner chairs the Finance and Legal Affairs Committee; Bill Wang is chair of the Investment Policy Oversight Group (IPOG), and Daniel Ortiz is chair of the Test Development and Research Committee and is also the nominee for the incoming Chair of the Board. His term will start 2010. In addition, sometimes the Chair will designate work groups to look at particular issues. I chaired the Membership Issues Work Group and Dan Ortiz chaired the Global Issues Work Group. That is just a little bit about the structure of the LSAC.

After the Board meeting at about 3:00p.m., we all met Peter Pashley who is the Principal Research Scientist and Director of Testing and Research for LSAC; Athornia Steele who is a Professor of Law at Capital University Law School; Peter’s daughter Charlotte; myself; and Frank Garcia who is a Professor of Boston College of Law. We all hitched a ride from the hotel shuttle into Jackson, Wyoming.

Peter picked up a rental car in town and then we explored Jackson a little bit. We stopped at the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar. It’s a really interesting place. Apparently the type of pine, from which a lot of the building was constructed, is very rare. It was under attack, by I guess a beetle, and so there’s not very much of it left. It was originally called the Cowboy Bar, but the reason it’s now called the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar is that it cost a million dollars to build it with this particular type of pine. The bar was remodeled to include the knobbled pine which graces the bar to this day. Mr. Goe purchased the bar and spent one whole winter cleaning and scraping the pine before it was used for construction. Since the knobbled pine was so well liked by the customers, Ben spent another 14 months transporting more of the wood, for chairs, pillars, walls and ceiling trim. At this time they also built a long fancy bar with silver dollars inlaid in the top.

After we stopped there, we walked around the square a little bit. We didn’t have much time, so we had to head back to the hotel for the reception and dinner. It turns out this is a very slow season in Jackson Hole. But the Four Seasons opened its hotel restaurant for us, The Peak, to have dinner and our reception, which would otherwise have been closed. It was a nice space. We all had a fun time. There are a lot of the folks on the Board with whom I’ve become friends. I don’t get to see them that much, so it was kind of nice to be able to visit with them. We meet three times a year. Since this was my last Board meeting, it was good to get to see everybody before rolling off the Board. That evening we gathered in the lobby bar area and had a nightcap before I called it a night. The next day Peter had graciously invited Thorny and I to join he and Charlotte for a trip to Yellowstone National Park, so we needed to get our rest for the trip.

On other note, while we were having our nightcap, there was a young man named Micah who had applied to our law school and I encouraged him to follow up. What a coincidence to be in Jackson Hole and run into a young man who applied for admission to our law school. It is a small world.

Thursday morning was a little bit of a blur because Teri Stafford and I returned late from Texarkana the night before. We had a faculty meeting at noon, the last faculty meeting of the year, and we were able to cover a number of agenda items in a very efficient way. Thanks to all my colleagues for a wonderful academic year. I could not do this job without your help and support. I am grateful for all the guidance and encouragement you have given me over this academic year.

After the faculty meeting, I left for XNA to fly out to Jackson Hole, Wyoming which was the site of my last LSAC Board Meeting. And as you know if you follow the blog, I have been involved with LSAC since I was a baby professor in 1994. I was brand new and non-tenured, so it was a bittersweet moment to actually think about the last Board meeting. My flight was a little bit inconvenient, but I wanted to stay in Fayetteville long enough to attend the last faculty meeting. Because of this, I had to fly from XNA to Dallas, Dallas to Denver, and Denver to Jackson Hole. The flight from Denver to Jackson Hole was on a little propeller plane. I arrived about 10:30 p.m. at night and there were no taxis waiting. In fact, the security guard had to call a taxi for me.

The taxi company that came to fetch me was called Red Neck Taxi (which, as you might imagine, didn’t give me much comfort. But the night security office explained that it’s just the name of the company and he wasn’t sure why it was called that). My driver was a very interesting character. It turns out he had a lot of knowledge about Jackson Hole. He had moved there from Denver and he liked it very much. He shared some of the history of Jackson Hole. One of the most interesting things he told me about was how, because we were right in the middle of migrating season, lots of wildlife was either on the road or right up next to the road. In fact, I saw quite a bit of wildlife on the drive to the hotel. To get to the hotel in Jackson Hole you have to drive through town and go around. Then you had to go back behind the airport to get to the Four Seasons, which is where the Board meeting was being held. After arriving at the hotel, it was time to hit the sack because our Board meeting would start at 9:00 in the morning.

The Four Seasons was a very beautiful hotel, with a major art collection. Among the artists represented are Reginald Marsh, Alberto Giacometti, and Romare Bearden. Born in Paris and growing up in New Jersey, Reginald Marsh attended Yale and then Art Students League of New York, supporting himself as an illustrator for the New York Daily News, Harper’s Bazaar and many other periodicals. He produced more than 4,000 illustrations for the Daily News alone. Marsh used contemporary subject matter in his work to depict urban life in all its tawdry aspects. His fascination with the human crowd was entirely individual for an artist of Marsh’s time. Marsh is best remembered for his Depression-era work, remains the most significant artistic figure of the genre in the United States, and has been the subject of major retrospectives.

Alberto Giacometti was born in Switzerland, and his father was a Post-Impressionist painter. Giacometti studied painting at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and sculpture and drawing at the Ecole des Arts et Métiers in Geneva. He traveled to Italy where he was impressed by works of Alexander Achipenko and Paul Cézanne and was also deeply affected by African and Egyptian art and by the masterpieces of Giotto and Tintoretto. Settling in Paris, he occasionally attended Antoine Bourdelle’s sculpture classes and found himself in the Surrealist circle. He became known for his work in the area of lithography. In 1965, Giacometti’s exhibitions were organized by the Tate Gallery in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek in Denmark, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. That same year, he was awarded the Grand Prix National des Arts by the French government.

Romare Bearden was born in North Carolina. Soon after, his family moved to New York City’s Harlem where their apartment was just across the street from the stage door of the Lafayette. This location would forever influence his work as an artist who looked to music – jazz and the blues – for many of his subjects. Paintings also emerged from his memory and experience of the South – of gospels and spirituals sung in church, and of blue notes bending through warm nights. Painting also emerged from his life in New York – the sophistication of bands playing Harlem clubs, and the excitement of crowded dance floors. He has also used collage to express the rhythms of black music. Bearden was profoundly influenced by the civil rights movement and has done much to promote opportunities for black artists.

One very special note: my assistant Terri Yeakley became engaged to Jason Huckleberry on Thursday morning. It’s very, very exciting. We wish them both the very, very best! Needless to say, the law school community is very hapy for them, really embraces them, and is excited about their engagement.

In addition, I’d like to say farewell to Stan Adelman. Stan has been an adjunct at the law school for a number of years and he leaves us to go to Albany Law School in New York where he will teach Torts and Sentencing/Correctional Law in the Fall, and Criminal Law and Bail to Jail in the Spring. Farewell, Stan. Thanks for being a great colleague over the years. We will miss you.