Leaving for the Workshop on Retention of Minority Law Teachers, I ran into a number of folks who were headed to the National Conference for the Minority Lawyer including our alums, Ben Cormack and Sonya Dodson, and Sonya’s darling daughter, Parker. Sonya’s mom was also traveling with her to take care of Parker while Sonya was in meetings. Miguel Rivera and Myra McKenzie were on their way to the made conference. It was fun to visit with them at the airport before boarding my flight to AALS meeting.

As it turned out (per usual), my connecting flight was delayed so I ended up arriving in Washington, DC late, but also (per usual) I enjoyed a long talk with my cab driver upon leaving the airport. If you’ve followed the blog, you know that I tend to engage my cab drivers in conversations (or vice-versa). This time, the discussion centered on the issue of the upcoming presidential election and my driver’s thoughts about what was happening in the political arena. I have to tell you that it was a pretty lively and interesting chat. I will spare you the details, however.

That evening we met for a speaker review meeting during which we talked about what each of us would present the next day. Our meeting was chaired by Prof. Mike Green of Wake Forest who was also the conference chair (and my torts teacher at Iowa). After the speakers meeting, we all attended the opening reception, which was a fun event.

That evening a group of us went to dinner at an Indian restaurant called Little India. Yumm. I ordered a vegetarian platter. Blog followers know that I’m a big Indian food fan and there’s plenty of great Indian food in Washington, DC. The conference was held at the Marriott Wardman Park and fortunately for foodies like myself, there are a number of ethnic restaurants On Connecticut street including two Indian restaurants. My dinner companions were Prof. Len Baynes of St. John’s University Law School; Hazel Weiser, Executive Director of the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT); Deb Post, President of SALT (Society of American Law Teachers); and Prof. Deleso Washington of Florida A&M.

I enjoyed having the opportunity to dine with them because I’d never met Hazel and she shared upcoming SALT initiatives. It’s always good too, to talk with and meet folks from across the academy who I don’t really know and who don’t teach in my area. Those conversations help me to learn of the issues that may be developing in legal education and to hear their thoughts. It’s also a great opportunity to share with them about the University of Arkansas. It was a lovely dinner and a good way to end the evening.

Tuesday, June 24, began with a meeting with Monika Szakasits. It was my last meeting with her in her role as Interim Director of the library because very soon Prof. Randall Thompson will join us to assume those duties. It was a great meeting, as always. Many, to Monika for all the hard work and long hours she’s put in to keep the library going during our search for a new director. She has been terrific to work with and has initiated a number of positive changes in the library while serving as Interim Director. It’s been terrific to work with her.

Later that afternoon Jane Archer visited the law school and took a tour with Teri Stafford and me. We enjoyed our visit with Jane. She is the granddaughter of Dean Waterman, and feels a strong connection to the law school. We are fortunate that she has an ongoing interest in the law school and its programs. Thanks Jane, for your continued support.

L to R: Jane Archer and Teri Stafford

After visiting with Jane, I met with Prof. Sheppard, Provost McMath, Dean Schwab of Arts and Sciences, and Dean Suzanne McCray of the Honors College about one of our adjunct professors, Henry McLeish. We met to

Dean Schwab

discuss how we might more creatively make the most of Henry’s visit to the campus each year. Henry brings a wealth of experience in EU law to the classroom and teaches in both the law school and the College of Arts and Sciences. (See the March 26^th posting for more about Henry). Teri Stafford and I later had our weekly development meeting. Later that evening I worked out at Curves, and it felt great.

After the workout it was time to prepare for the trip to Washington, DC, to attend the AALS Retention of Minority Law Teachers Workshop and the opening of the AALS New Teachers Workshop. From there I would head to Houston for our first alumni reception at the Texas Bar Association Annual meeting.

Monday I didn’t have any of meetings, so I had time to catch up on correspondence and to return phone calls after having been out of the office for the trip to Texarkana. Monday evening I had a bittersweet social engagement, dinner with Professor Stan Adelman. Professor Adelman had been an adjunct and member of the law school community for many years. His expertise is in the area of criminal law, particularly bail to jail, post-conviction remedies and the penal system. Our students benefitted from the fact that he brought many years of practical experience to the classroom. We will certainly miss him. He is leaving us to pursue a wonderful opportunity to teach full-time at the University of Albany Law School.

Also, though it was a quiet day I have to give a special shout out to Dean Lonnie Beard whose 60^th birthday is the 23^rd of June. Fortunately for him, he was on vacation so didn’t have to endure any of our ribbing and teasing. Happy Birthday Dean Beard!

10 Years of Sisterhood: Phi Alpha Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

Sunday started off with church as usual at 8:30 a.m. at Good Shepherd Lutheran followed by breakfast with the breakfast bunch. I finally remembered to take my camera and get some pictures of them, though not everyone was there. As a rule, we tend to eat at one of several places and that morning it was Sunset Grill, a wonderful family owned restaurant on 412 in Springdale. If you’ve followed the blog for a while, you know that my friend Dean Jim Chen University of Louisville Law School, had breakfast there, with us.

Sunday afternoon I attended a very special event. As many of you know, I am a member of the Phi Alpha Omega graduate chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. Our chapter was chartered in 1998 making this our 10 year anniversary. When we were chartered, there were 15 members and we have more 50 members of the chapter. Our sorors planned an anniversary event to celebrate the chartering and to honor the chartering members. It was a lovely affair that was held at Compton Gardens in Bentonville, a beautiful setting that also hosts the Benton County bar meetings.

It was wonderful to see again a number of the chartering members who we hadn’t in a long time. We were all gathered together and the South Central Regional Director for the sorority, at the time the chapter was chartered, flew in to join us from the Houston, Texas area. It was wonderful to be with her again too. Her name is Dr. Polly Sparks-Turner. She is an amazing, warm, accomplished woman. A pharmacist by training, she has endowed a scholarship in her name. The scholarship, the Dr. Paulie Sparks Turner Endowed Scholarship, is given to an undergraduate student pursuing a degree in the allied health profession. Those of us who were chartering members of the chapter have very strong, warm feelings for Dr. Turner. Though she has faced many challenges since we came to know and love her, including the storms that swept through Houston, and health challenges, she has weathered it all with dignity and grace. Soror Polly is a terrific lady; a wonderful role model, a warm friend, and a kind sister. It was wonderful to welcome her back to Northwest Arkansas.

The program was terrific. Dr. Margaret Clark, an Emeritus Prof. of the University of Arkansas, and Phi Alpha Omega’s first President, talked about how we came to charter the chapter. She shared our arduous route to the chapter’s chartering and how we celebrated on that day. She also highlighted some of the many programs of Phi Alpha Omega over the years. Soror Margaret is a Golden Soror, which means she’s been a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha for 50 years.

Soror Elecia Smith, another founding member us towards to move gracefully towards the future and reminded us what true sisterhood is all about. Soror Stacie Lambey graced us with a wonderful solo. There was a great deal of warmth and love in the room. Thanks very much to the program planners, in particular Soror Nikkela Tucker. For the foodies out there, both a wonderfully prepared and beautiful spread of hors d’oeuvres. We very much enjoyed the sisterhood, the program and the meal. Thanks again to my sorors of Phi Alpha Omega. It was a wonderful celebration of 10 years of sisterhood and love in Northwest Arkansas. I’m looking forward to what the chapter will achieve in the next 10 years. I know we will continue to serve Northwest Arkansas. What a full day and a blessed one.

The Saturday morning program was the official celebration which was billed as “The Saturday Hunt Event” at the Silas Hunt CDC.  In addition to those who had attended the reception the evening before, including Stephanie Flowers, there were a number new faces in the crowd on Saturday.  I was tickled to meet another of our law school alums, Garland Yarber.

L to R: Carlton Jones, Dean Nance, and Garland Yarber

Garland is in solo practice and family law and has represented the Army for 20 years.  In 1986, as a law student, he was awarded a Silas Hunt Award for leadership. Carlton Jones, also our alum and a prosecutor also came out to meet us and to celebrate Silas Hunt.

L to R: Dean Nance and Stephanie Flowers

We were honored that several board members of the Silas Hunt Community Development Center attended the event as well.  After Precious welcomed everyone and gave a few opening remarks, Chris Erwin and I both gave formal remarks, bringing greetings from the University of Arkansas and recognizing the importance of this event for the University of Arkansas and the State of Arkansas.  Representative Flowers spoke about her dad’s involvement with Silas Hunt and how important his memory was to her personally. The programs concluded with a recognition of “friends of the Silas Hunt Community Development Center,” and members of the board. It was a memorable event.

Then it was time for Chris and I to head back to Fayetteville because that evening we both had special events to attend (more on that later).  We stopped in Mena, Arkansas for lunch at a really terrific barbeque restaurant, Branding Iron BBQ & Steakhouse.  All the while we had been driving North back to Fayetteville, I tried to reach Jake Looney, the former Dean of the Law School and a really good friend who is now a Judge in Mena, Arkansas.  The only number I had for him, it turned out, was for his farm house, so I wasn’t able to reach him.  I would have loved to seen him and to have him join us for lunch.  The meal was great, both in terms of quality and quantity. The well seasoned meat just fell off the bone.  If you are a barbeque fan, I recommend it if you find yourself headed down 71 South through Mena. The service was fantastic and warm.  What a meal.  Chris and I laughed about driving back the rest of the way because we had such a fantastic meal and it was going to be a challenge to stay awake but we were good company for each other, and enjoyed a pleasant trip home.

Once I got back to Fayetteville, I rushed into the house and changed into jeans to go to an informal, but wonderful and warm gathering in honor of Dean Dan Worrell’s 60th birthday. His wife, Diane, cooked a fabulous Mexican spread (as if I needed to eat again, I know).  It was terrific as were the margaritas. Of course after such a long week, I had no choice other than to enjoy.  Seriously, it was a wonderful event.  I got to meet Dean Worrell’s mom and to be part of a small gathering of friends (sorry no pictures).  It was a very pleasant way to relax after a long, eventful week.

Happy Birthday to Jacque Dunn, Senior Library Assistant!

After checking in that morning, I headed down to Texarkana, Texas with Chris Erwin from the School of Continuing Education & Academic Outreach. We left early because we wanted to have plenty of time to get there. We were going to an event at the Silas Hunt Community Development Center celebrating the fact that the School of Law had awarded a post humus degree to Silas Hunt this year on the 60^th anniversary year of his admission to law school.

Chris and I arrived at the Courtyard Marriott hotel and had just enough time to spruce up before heading to the community center. On the way to the community center, Chris drove through Texarkana a little bit and we stopped at the state line. The court house there, for those who don’t know, straddles the Texas and the Arkansas border there in Texarkana. We took a few pictures before continuing on to the center.

When we arrived, we were greeted by a small group who had gathered at the Silas Hunt Community Development Center, including Janis Kearney. You may know about Janis’ amazing life. She was born in Gould, Arkansas as the 14^th of 19 children born into a sharecropping family. She has written an autobiography of her life entitled Cotton Fields of Dreams. Though I haven’t read it yet, it’s on my “to read” list. Janis published the historic Arkansas State Press for a number of years and later joined President Clinton’s administration as his diarist. The Arkansas Alumni Association awarded her a distinguished alumni award from the University of Arkansas Alumni Association in 2006. Janis is truly an amazing person, and she’s warm and gracious on top of it all.

Among the many other attendees were some Arkansas alums, Carlton Jones who was a 1988 University of Arkansas Law School grad and an ‘85 undergraduate graduate of the University of Arkansas along with Imogene Scott who is also an alum of the University of Arkansas, and a classmate of Silas Hunt. It was a very wonderful, warm and welcoming group joined later by Stephanie Flowers who was there to commemorate the fact that as a result of legislation she sponsored in the legislature, February 2 is now Silas Hunt Day in the state of Arkansas. Representative Flowers’ dad was Harold Flowers, civil rights leader and lawyer for whom Arkansas’ National Bar Association Chapter Affiliate in Arkansas is named.

After we visited briefly, Precious Williams, Director of the Silas Hunt Community Center gave a few welcoming remarks which were followed by brief remarks from Chris Erwin and me. Afterwards the end of the program, there were munchies for everyone to enjoy. Chris and I went from there to dinner at the Red Lobster restaurant next to the hotel. It was really a fun dinner. We had a blast, then returned to the hotel to turn in early because the program was to start early Saturday.

Happy Birthday to Jan Ingram, a member of our staff who is our travel czarina.  We hope she had a wonderful birthday!

This was the day to speak at the Rotary Club, so that morning again, I pulled together the notes I’d put together for that speech and got over to the Rotary at 11:30 a.m.  I talked about some of the developments in legal education that I’ve blogged about before. I also talked about the Carnegie Report and Best Practices and how the law school is engaged in its own strategic planning process.  I shared with the Rotarians how the programs and courses offered by the law school address some of the concerns of Best Practices and the Carnegie Report including our extensive clinical program, our pro bono program, the skills competitions, our legal writing program, and the fact that we are looking again at restructuring our upper level writing requirement.  They were very interested and asked a number of questions including the progress of the courtyard, the number of students we have, what the class looked like in terms of diversity, whether they tended to be in state or out of state, and about new faculty members, so it was a very engaged and lively audience.  Thanks very much to Prof. Brill for inviting me to speak to the Rotarians.  There were a number of our alums there who are members of Rotary and it was great to interact with them.  When I got there, rather than going up to sit at the speaker’s table, I actually sat in the back with our alums who were pretty rowdy back there, and that included John Threet, the local Washington County Prosecutor, and Judge Kim Smith.

After speaking to the Rotary Club, I had a conference call with the Arkansas Code Revision Commission.  That lasted about an hour, after which, there was a going away party for Stan Adelman, but because I had to prepare to go to Texarkana first thing in the morning the next day, I didn’t make the party.  I knew I’d have dinner with Stan the next Monday and so I begged his forgiveness for missing his party. I hated that I missed it because I heard it was quite a fun time with a pretty big band and lots of dancing and food and a good time was had by all.

On the 18th of June I worked in the morning on a speech for rotary. I was invited to speak to the Fayetteville Rotary Club on the next day at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, so I wanted to make sure to be thoughtful about the remarks I shared with them.

At 11:00 a.m. I met with Prof. Flaccus and I want to say a special thanks here to Prof. Flaccus. She has worked tirelessly around the plants and the courtyard garden. The beautiful plants that you see in the courtyard are her work, along with Dr. Michael Hollomon and Prof. Ann Killenbeck. They are in charge of both designing and then overseeing the work of planting those and making sure that we have the very best plants in to honor the life and legacy of Dean Richard Atkinson. She and I had a meeting about some plants we had received that were not very successful and also about our ivy in the front and what we might do to both fill in the empty spaces there and the ivy that was receiving too much sun along the driveway that leads up to the entrance to the courtyard. That was a great meeting. I got the chance to walk around with her and visit with her around the various plantings and what was left to be done. And thanks to her for her very diligent work (all her own time and in many cases her donations) to fill in spots in the garden and to try new plants to make sure they would be successful. The garden is coming together very, very nicely and I think those of you who are not in the area will be very, very pleased with her work when you see it.

That afternoon I had lunch with Dr. Margaret Clark who retired from the College of Education and is a Sorority Sister with whom I’ve traveled abroad. We ate at Joe’s Bistro, which is in the Fiesta Square Shopping Center. I have to say foodies, this is not particularly highly recommended on my list of places to eat. The food was sort of adequate, but not particularly interesting. Go try it and see what you think.

After lunch with Dr. Clark, I came back and met with our Director of Career Services, Susan Schell. She talked about her plans for improving the Office of Career Services’ programs during the coming year. She will be creating an advisory committee of students to work with her around those efforts and has some ideas about bringing in smaller law firms and also programming around career opportunities that are available. Stay tuned for those new programs and services.

Dr. Henderson

Today I began with a visit to Dr. Henderson who gave me my permanent crown. For those of you who have been following the blog, you know there have been a number of dental visits this year and this was the last one for a while (we hope). One of the unfortunate things was that as he was putting the temporary crown on he saw that the tooth next to it had a spot of decay, so I had to get a new filling upon receiving my crown. Hopefully that’s the last visit to Dr. Henderson for a while.For the bloggies who have been following this, I finally got him to consent to letting me take his picture so there he is. Dr. Henderson has been doing all this great dental work and enables me to have such a fun smile.

That afternoon for lunch, one of our alums and one of the earliest students I taught stopped by, Stacey Sturner. It was great to be able to catch up with her. Many of you may know she was the campaign manager for Courtney Henry who ran successfully for a seat on the Arkansas Court of Appeals. She shared with me what that experience was like and some of the funny stories and people they encountered during Courtney’s campaign. We had lunch at Taste of Thai off the square in downtown Fayetteville and I have to say I was pretty predictable because I went with the typical Pad See Eu meal and Stacey had a curry.

After lunch she dropped me off, and later that afternoon Angela Hyde, one of our recent graduates, came in to share with me her ideas for fundraising for the Innocence Project. That was an interesting meeting and it was also good to learn more about the work of the Innocence Project and where the co-directors think it will be going in the future. For those of you who aren’t aware, please visit the website.

Patsy Brewer

That evening after work, there was a reception honoring Patsy Brewer in the Mockingbird Room at the Fayetteville Town Center. Patsy Brewer has been for many, many years the Director of the Fayetteville Habitat for Humanity Program. It was fun to be able to go to that reception and say thanks to Patsy. Some of you who follow the blog may know that, in fact, the law school is engaged in a Wills Project with Habitat for Humanity in which students working under the supervision of Prof. Carl Circo draft wills for the Habitat homeowners. We’re very proud of that program.

June 14th -15th

The weekend after the Arkansas Bar Association Annual Meeting was a quiet one. I spent some time with mom on Saturday evening and had breakfast with the breakfast bunch after church.

June 16th

The 16th began as usual on a Monday with Pilates with Claudia at Studio Pilates. The day was a catch up day on correspondence, phone calls and e-mails that had piled up while being at the bar meeting. I also had some informal visits around the plants for the completion of the courtyard, our upcoming events, and looking at sprucing up rooms 325 and 327. We discussed what that might entail and tried to determine whether the contractors would be able to finish that work before school starts.

After work, it was time for a polite evening with my good friend and cruise companion Carol Gattis at the Lambeth Lounge at Carnall Hall. However, it turns out that our visit turned into a really delightful evening. While we were there visiting and making our last minute plans for the Fabulous at 50 cruise, we were joined by Prof. Mike Mullane who sat down to visit with us to hear about our past adventures as well as those we had planned. He then called Prof. D’Lorah Hughes who came and joined us as well. That was a fun time! It was very informal and very relaxing to visit with them. As it turns out, Richard Alexander was there that evening. He’s one of our alums and a very well-known real estate developer in Northwest Arkansas and when he left, he put our drinks on his tab. Thanks, Richard!

Afterwards, Prof. Mullane left us and the three of us – D’Lorah, myself and Carol – walked down to Dickson Street and had sushi at Wow. Although Carol doesn’t really like sushi, she had some tempura. It was a fun dinner and it was a chance to get to know D’Lorah a little bit better and also to congratulate her on her recently purchased home. In fact, she had just decided on it that day, so we celebrated that joyous event with her that evening. What had started out as an evening with just the two of us ended up being much more and much more enjoyable for the additional company.