The University of Oregon School of Law is bringing new classes and leadership to its current undergraduate offerings by adding a more robust legal studies program.
About a year ago, the law school began orchestrating a plan to expand its current undergraduate course load. Sixteen classes are currently available in the areas of law and conflict and dispute resolution. However, not all courses are offered every term.
For fall 2014, undergraduates had six classes to choose from. The new plan will introduce “a combination of introductory courses, capstone freshman seminars, service-learning opportunities, upper-level offerings and directed thesis supervision,” according to a press release from the Office of Communications.
Erick Hoffman was the director of communications when the project was first conceived. He has since left the position, but has continued working with the school on a consulting basis for several months. He said the courses are by no means aimed exclusively at students who are planning to go to law school.
“It certainly helps undergraduates who might want to pursue law school understand what it might be like, but taking law courses adds another facet to an undergraduate experience and could potentially make them more attractive to an employer upon graduation,” Hoffman said. “Say you’re a business major, and you’ve gotten the chance to take some courses in copyright law…that additional knowledge could be something helpful to you in securing employment.”
New classes will include animals and the law, introduction to American law and conflicts of incarceration. A comprehensive list of law and conflict resolution classes can be found on DuckWeb.
“The idea is to grow it over the next 24-36 months into a full major,” said Erica Daley, associate dean of finance for the law school and current communications director.
In addition, the project will be facilitated by faculty both old and new. Next year, Michael Musheno will join current Faculty Director Stuart Chinn.
Musheno is an adjunct professor of law and faculty director of the Legal Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. He is also a former program director of Law and the Social Sciences at the National Science Foundation and has directed centers and departments at Arizona State University and San Francisco State University.
Together, they will be in charge of overseeing the context of the curriculum and making sure it connects to other departments at the university.
“I thought about the difference between the focus of undergrad. In law school, we study the law because you’re studying it for its own sake,” said Chinn. “The law itself is the thing you’re trying to interrogate. What we’re trying to do is to make it more interdisciplinary.”