UC College of Law faculty teach in, fund scholarships

When the Office of Admissions expressed concerns about declining enrollment within the University of Cincinnati College of Law, faculty members decided to take a proactive approach. 

“The thought was that because we’re small, it wouldn’t really take that much to make a difference in the composition of our class,” says professor Marjorie Aaron.

Professor Christopher Bryant invited faculty members to talk about their concerns, and after a few meetings, the group proposed creating new scholarships that would be funded by faculty contributions. In order to raise funds, faculty would also host a teach-in, where local law professionals could receive continuing legal education, and in the process, ease the burden of financial debt for current and prospective students. 

More than $50,000 has been raised since the creation of the College of Law Faculty Scholarship Fund—with $10,000 raised in a single day at the March teach-in. 

“We went in with the focus to use what we do and what we like to do to help them, but there were a lot of unanticipated benefits, and maybe the most significant is that it really built a foundation for an ongoing relationship between the law school and what the needs are from the firms downtown,” Bryant says. 

“That was already happening, but I think we kind of institutionalized that in a way that gives real promise for the future. The mission of the university is to be a resource for the community—and there’s appetite for that.”

And the verage student loan debt for UC Law’s 2012 graduates was about $84,140 per person, according to UC Law’s financial aid website. Student representatives were able to speak about the burden of loans at the teach-in. 

Aaron says their words echoed issues common in legal education today. “If you had a dream to work in public interest, it becomes much harder to do that when you have an enormous debt burden,” she says. “So they did talk about that fact, but also the idea that no one wants to make a foolish financial move when they’re starting out.” 

Since faculty members want their students to be able to pursue their passions, they’ve contributed $40,000 on their own to assist with funding. 

“We’re a really tiny faculty—we don’t have 30 people,” Aaron says. “But we really know our students and we care about our students, and that was true before the debt issue and it’s even more true now. And the fact that we were able to raise as much money as we did and generate the willingness to volunteer is a testament to how strongly we feel about supporting our students.”

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By Brittany York

Brittany York is a professor of English composition at the University of Cincinnati and a teacher at the Regional Institute of Torah and Secular Studies. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.