Last week, I called a credit card agency only to be helped by a “virtual” customer service representative. If I am remembering correctly, her name was Claire. I do not know how many of you have gotten to chat with a digital person, but I am sure you can appreciate how frustrating it can be.
“Please state in a normal tone, your first name, middle initial, and last name.” Say what? I couldn’t believe I was interacting with a digital answering service that referred to itself by a name and asked me to leave extremely sensitive information like my social security number, all of my recent addresses, date of birth, etc.
It used to be that menu options were the only thing digitalized and served as a way to direct your call to the people most qualified to answer your inquiry. “If you are calling to inquire about X, please press one now. If you are calling to report a stolen Y, please press two now. For all other inquires, please stay on the line, and a general service representative will assist you. All customer representatives are now assisting other calls; your call will be answered in the order it was received and may be monitored for quality assurance purposes.” You’ve all heard it.
I was fine with this process, though it sometimes took a couple minutes to go through all the menu options and you always had to repeat the menu because you missed half of it the first time. At the very least, you were more assured that the person with whom you connected would be able to help.
Oddly enough, I had another peculiar phone interaction the week before last. I called a major cable company via a number advertised on TV to inquire about available cable packages, and their prices. I could not believe it; a woman, who I assume worked for an answering service the cable company hired, helped me. All she did was take my information: name, telephone number, address, and nature of inquiry. Then she told me that the appropriate cable company representative would contact me in two to three business days. Well yeah, that’s who I wanted to talk to anyway; who are you?
Needless to say, I never got that follow-up phone call. While I now know that there are more direct lines to contact the company, I was appalled that such a service even existed: an answering service designed to take my information and enter it into a database to be forwarded to the people I want to talk to only to have those people never respond. Simple.
People are spending more time on their phones, only to be talking to fewer people about meaningful things. Our lives are becoming more and more dependent on technology. While prior developments focused on developing machines to do mechanical work, to specialize in, for example, putting the bolts on a car axle configuration in an assembly line, more recent developments are focused on designing machines to replace human interaction. This may increase efficiency to a certain extent, but where do we draw the line?
We see people walking around with mobile phones on their ears and palm pilots in their hands while heading to class. I even know a few people who have mastered counting seconds internally to avoid going over that first minute of their Sprint PCS calling plans, only to leave a message for their friend Jennifer, which basically says: “I am heading to class and will talk to you later.”
And then people like Claire come along and I can’t help but wonder where our society is going. The last thing I want to do when reporting a stolen social security card, is leave my social security with a virtual assistant named Claire. Can I talk to someone about what I should do, who I should contact, etc.? If I want someone, a real person, to take my call can I please press nine?
“Sorry sir, that is not an option.” Click.
Archive for January, 2002
Press one now
Tuesday, January 29th, 2002 | Corey HarrisLetters
Tuesday, January 29th, 2002 | Kelly O'Shea“Naked Air” and satire
To the editor:
Jonathan Swift is turning in his grave. The founder of satirical writing put forth in his 1729 “Modest Proposal,” that the people of Ireland, in hopes of dealing with the problem of over -population and undernourishment, should breed and raise children to feed the population; they should eat their offspring.
He laid out economic, financial, and of course, culinary benefits. One can imagine the outrageous response and outpouring of emotion the Irish people displayed upon reading his suggestion. Was this man insane, and what publisher would print such drivel and malicious distaste?
Alas, it was Swift who had the upper hand all along. He was joking: just pulling the leg of the Irish people,
and all of his readers. Above all the satire and tongue-in-cheekness, however, Swift had a point. Ireland was facing a great problem and none seemed too concerned to offer a solution. The close of his work challenges politicians to come up with any answer that begins to solve Ireland’s problems: one with enough stature to match his own.
Thomas Friedman, the author of the opinion editorial, “Naked Air,” also had a point. It was not to fly naked in airplanes, which Ms. Krotoswki astutely nipped in the bud. Rather, it was to change the ideals of our society, both domestic and abroad, or prepare to accommodate the repercussions of obstinacy. Friedman moves from his hypothetical analogy to the heart of his argument rather quickly, as signified by his “well, you get the point” before he transitions to talk of terrorists, security questions, and foreign policy occupying one and two-thirds pages of his two page article.
His main point is that the United States of America places a great deal of trust in the hands of its citizens, but that this trust cannot necessarily be extended to those who reside outside our nation and wish to travel to it. Examples of this trust are electronic ticketing machines from days of yore asking “did you pack your own bags” with appropriate ‘yes’ and ‘no’ boxes to touch onscreen. Other nations and governments are not as stringent in their dealings with security measures as we are now, and that difference can be reflected and found in such cases as Richard Reid, the terrorist who attempted to light the explosive in his shoe en route to the States from Paris. Friedman puts it best, “this is America’s core problem today: a free society is based on openness and on certain shared ethics and honor codes to maintain order, and we are now intimately connected to too many societies that do not have governments that can maintain order and to peoples who have no respect for our ethics or our honor codes for America to stay America, a free and open society, intimately connected to the world, the world has to become a much more ordered and controlled place. But in today’s post-Cold War world, many, many countries to which we are connected are in a transition between the two-between a rigid authoritarian order that was imposed and voluntary self-government that is being home-grown. It makes for a very messy world, especially as some countries-Afghanistan being the most extreme example-are not able to make the transition.”
I admire Ms. Krotowski in her attempt to challenge the status quo with a source as lofty as the New York Times, but I am disappointed in the editors of our own Student Life who did not bother to check the object of Ms. Krotowski’s critique or edit the severity of her writing. People having sex on airplanes? Please, that is not even an objection to Friedman’s assertions, rather it is an extrapolation of chance from what was intended as satire. And Ms. Krotowski, if your article was intended as satire’s satire, you sorely missed. It remains important to see the forest through the trees.
Joshua Lebowitz
Class of 2002
Arts & Sciences
The long and winding road
Tuesday, January 29th, 2002 | Kelly O'SheaStaff Editorial, January 28, 1994
The issue of sexual harassment has consistenctly garnered attention in numerous areas of government and culture in recent years: The Clarence Thomas hearings, the Navy’s Tailhook scandal and the latest redefinition of sexual harassment by the Supreme Court are prime examples. Even the nation’s current best-selling book, Michael Crichton’s Disclosure, explores the problem of harassment on the job. Moreover, colleges such as Antioch and Swarthmore were recently charged in the media with handling the sensitive issue poorly, or at least strangely.
But one need look no further than Hilltop Campus to see the problem. In a 1991 survey distributed by the Sexual Abuse Task Force, almost half of the respondents, both male and female, claimed they had experienced some form of harassment at the university. Examples of harassment included obscene comments and gestures, verbal threats, unwanted attention, being followed, etc.
Fortunately, the university has many programs, run by both students and administrators, to deal with sexual harassment problems. Uncle Joes, the Women’s Resource Center and Resident Advisors are all available and qualified to give support on a student-to-student level. In addition, CORE and the Committee on Sexual Abuse provide education and evaluation of sexual crimes and crime prevention on campus.
Administrators such as Associate Dean of Students Karen Coburn, Director of Residential Life Tony Nowak and Coordinator of Judicial Affairs John Lowery are also availible for counseling and resolving disputes. Finally, a student-run phone service known as the Sexual Assault and Rape Action Hotline (S.A.R.A.H.) is being formed and will provide additional services.
Those affected by sexual harassment often experience some of the same psychological effects as rape survivors: distrust, self-blame, fear, even post-traumatic stress syndrome. Unfortunately, resolutions on harassment cases are dismissed before they reach the university’s judicial board.
For example, a possible course of action to resolve a harassment case includes talking to an RA, who would refer one to an administrator, then on to the coordinatior for judicial affairs, who might recommend bringing the case to the judicial board, which might find that a harassment actually occured. The likelihood of success in this process is not encouraging, assuming the victim can endure the bureaucracy in the first place: of the ten cases of harassment officially reported in the past year, seven were dismissed by the judicial administrator. The system is so slow that even the Handbook on Aquaintance Rape and Sexual Assault, published by the Division of Student Affairs, admits that filing a report with local police is “only the first step in the lengthy criminal justice process.”
What they really meant
Tuesday, January 29th, 2002 | Kelly O'Shea
A letter sent to the parents of Washington University seniors, January 2001:
Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Wayne
2310 Big House Road
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Wayne:
I write to introduce myself and several of my colleagues in the College Office, since we work closely with seniors and hope to serve as contacts to you, their parents, in the months to come.
Both as a dean and as a parent who has lived through a child’s senior year experience, I know it to be a time filled with conflicting emotions, both for the senior and thc parent. Excited anticipation of the next challenge in life may be followed closely by anxiety over the steps necessary to achieve a desired goal leading to a new beginning. A senior’s year is much like a roller coaster, with the parent along for the ups and downs of the ride. One day may bnng exasperation and aggravation over perhaps a missed deadline while the next may produce great joy over the successful outcome on a national examination or a well-executed interview. At the same time, a student’s final year in college is a balancing act. On the one hand are claims of the University for time
(classes, honors theses, laboratory projects, friends who will be missed the next year), while on the other is the pull of the future (the completion of applications, drafting of resumes, preparation for interviews).
A senior class typically looks forward to plans for one of three career paths: employment following graduation or graduate and professional school. Even before the end of the first semester, seniors feel that they must be looking after matters that relate to one of these paths. The job seekers will be establishing a recommendation file at the Career Center, while the graduate-school-bound seniors will be working on applications to graduate schools. Future lawyers take the LSAT examination in the fall semester, while premedical candidates will have just completed the process of having their letters of recom nendation sent to medical schools and, as a result, are about to embark on travels to interviews. There are tasks for seniors each month, at times each week. Those of us in the College Office involved in the senior experience would like to aid you and them in understanding what needs to be done and help them do it in a timely manner. You as parents can help too by offering encouragement, listening to stories of adventures and perceived misadventures, learning the process and lending an ear to proposed strategies. A little nagging at times will not be amiss both from you and from us. My first reminder to seniors this fall is to submit the following:
Intent to Graduate Form
where: Office of Student Records
when: November 30, 2001
It is appropriate for me to start my reminders with this form, as I have the duty in May to determine whether seniors have met all requirements for graduation. You can reach me at 314-935-6865 or [email protected].
Several of my colleagues who are also located in the College Office in 205 South Brookings are involved with specific concerns of seniors, and they would be happy to be of help:
Dean Dirk Killen, contact person for major merit fellowships (Javits, Marshall, Mellon, NSF, Rhodes, others): 314-935-6066 or [email protected]
Dean Sara Johnson, pre-law advisor: 314-935-4936 or [email protected]
Dean Carolyn Herman, life sciences advisor: 314-935-8076 or
[email protected]
Dean Sharon Stahl, life sciences advisor: 314-935-6089 or
[email protected].
Sincerely,
Wayne T. Hanebrink
What they really meant:
Mr. and Mrs. Lee Douglas
493 Ponce de Leon Manor
Atlanta, GA 30307
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Douglas:
I write both to introduce myself to you and to your child, as neither of you has either met me or probably ever heard of the College Office. Furthermore, I would like to remind you that your child is at Washington University attending college. It is in St. Louis. That is where she has been for the last four years.
As both a dean and as a parent, I understand that painful acid-reflux you get late at night thinking about your child moving back into the basement, eating your pantry clean, and charging liquor to the AMEX. But I want you to know that your senior, too, has anxiety over this minty-fresh beginning.
Senior year is a lot like a box of chocolates-while sweet and delectable on the surface, underneath lie 280 calories from fat requiring both another trip to Frontenac for a size 8 and some Oxy Maximum Strength Pads from Walgreens. At the same time, a senior’s year is a lot like that of a schizophrenic’s over at the loony bin on Manchester: on one hand is the pressure of finding a real job and making enough money so women don’t turn and giggle when you introduce yourself at a bar; on the other is the incessant ritualistic binge drinking and staple substance abuse that is only typical of second semester seniors.
A senior traditionally looks to one of seven career paths: medical school, law school, corporate sellout, petty internship, move back into the basement, “work for my dad,” attempt to date Chelsea Clinton and be seen with pop icons, or try to get on the Real World. Even before second semester begins, many seniors don’t realize they are in fact seniors and that May means that their lease is up, as is daddy’s health insurance, meaning a chipped tooth doing a keg stand just got a lot more expensive. But those who do realize their seniordom try to immediately categorize and compartmentalize their lives so as to fit into one of the seven typical paths. The corporate sellouts will fruitlessly try our aged and dying Career Center (Oh, unless your child is in the B-School, in which case she will be just fine). Future lawyers are blissfully gathering recommendations with dollar signs in their eyes. And the doctors of tomorrow are probably trying beer for the first time this semester. Isn’t that special?
It is my job at the College Office, and yours too, to help seniors down this difficult seven-way fork in time. But I assure you the benefit is mutual: your child entering a successful career both gets her out of your financial auspices and simultaneously makes our school look good. Remember: letting your child pursue anything other than fame or the first four career paths outlined above-for example, “bumming around Europe” or “finding myself before making a major career decision”-is a disgrace to you and a dishonor to the University.
If you have any questions and/or concerns, please feel free to call my secretary and have your call re-routed until it reaches someone who is so clueless on the matter he can’t even re-direct you further. Honestly, the best would just be to come on into North Brookings. So if it’s a Monday between 2 and 3:45 , and I remember to show up, I look forward to chatting with you soon. Good luck to you and your child, and God’s speed.
Dwayne Tanefrink
Associate Dean
New Releases
Tuesday, January 29th, 2002 | Kelly O'SheaBirthday Girl
John (Ben Chaplin) is a banker who can’t find success in his social life and turns to the internet for a solution. No. Not that way. He orders a Russian mail-order bride, Nadia (Nicole Kidman). His small-town life is disrupted however, when two of Nadia’s mysterious “cousins” arrive and reveal Nadia’s true intentions in the marriage. Obviously she was just trying to get back at Tom. At the Esquire.
Dark Blue World
The background of Jan Sverak’s movie is commentary on Czechoslovakia’s Communist government’s putting its war heroes in labor camps. In the foreground of the movie two Czech pilots (Ondrej Vetchy and Krystof Hadek) flying for the RAF fall in love with the same woman. In Czech with subtitles. At the Plaza Frontenac.
Slackers
Dave (Devon Sawa), Sam (Jason Segel) and Jeff (Michael Maronna) have their attempt at cheating their way through college discovered by geek Ethan (Jason Schwartzman). Ethan goes the blackmail route but instead of asking for money, he wants Angela (James King), the most popular girl in school. Dave proves that he cheated his way through the lit class that taught Cyrano de Bergerac and also falls in love with Angela. Mayhem ensues. At the Galleria.
Political correctness and diversity replace truth
Tuesday, January 29th, 2002 | Julia Kreyskop How wonderful it must be to know that we have crossed the line which separates truth from illusion, and reality from political correctness. Take a guess as to which side of the line we are finally on and then ask yourself whether it is possible, or even wise, to stay there.
There is a memorial that will eventually be put up in front of the New York Fire Department’s Brooklyn headquarters in honor of the firefighters who lost their lives in the rubble of the World Trade Center. It seems that at the moment no one is sure what the memorial will look like, yet this uncertainty comes only after a controversy that erupted over what the memorial was at first designed to look like.
It was going to be a statue fashioned after the famous photograph of three (white) firefighters raising a flag amid the rubble. A clay model of the statue was made in December. Strangely enough, the model did not show the three firefighters found in the photo. Instead, it depicted three firefighters, one of whom was black, another white, and the third Hispanic.
September 11th claimed the lives of 343 firefighters (12 Hispanic and 12 black), but no statistic can represent the huge diversity of those who died. Not only were there different races, but there were also different ethnicities and different ages; modern-day America, however, places the bulk of its value on the diversity achieved only by skin color.
The point is not that there is anything wrong with having a statue with a black, a white, and a Hispanic man. The point is that the model was based on a real photograph and reality was disregarded for the sake of being politically correct. More disgusting, shocking, and telling, are the comments made to support this distortion of the truth.
According to a CNN.com article (1/12/02), Kevin James, a member of the Vulcan Society representing black firefighters, stated that “the symbolism is far more important than representing the actual people.” How nice to ignore individuals in the name of symbolism. The firefighters who died and lived were not actual individuals, you see; they are symbolic of a greater whole. That greater whole is American society. American society does not live and breathe and prosper by virtue of the individuals that make it up; those things do not matter. What does matter is yet unknown, but Mr. James is all for symbolizing it.
He adds, “I think the artistic expression of diversity would supersede any concern over factual correctness.” There you have it: factual correctness can actually be superceded; truth is nice but hardly necessary. Distortions, lies, opinion, artistic expression, and political correctness have finally gained the ability to replace truth as the ultimate value. If real diversity is such a big concern for Mr. James, would it not make sense to actually represent the men in the photograph? What Mr. James,with the twisted mentality of those who lump blacks, whites, Hispanics, and others into groups for the sake of achieving a diversity which ignores what actual diversity really is may not realize, is that the three men in the photograph each have different opinions, experiences, and dreams. Something tells me that they are not all the same; that something is common sense.
So much more can be said, but I think it would be best for me to end this editorial before common sense and reason are “superceded” by yet another piece of fluff.
Police Beat
Tuesday, January 29th, 2002 | Rajas PargaonkarThursday, January 24
11:45 p.m., LARCENY-THEFT, MUDD DORM-Student stated that over winter break, his neon sign was taken from his secured suite. Loss estimated at $300.
Friday, January 25
4:03 p.m., AUTO ACCIDENT, PARKING LOT #2-Reporting party stated that on yesterday’s date, person(s) unknown struck her parked vehicle without reporting the accident. This accident occurred during the times the owner was at work; amount of minor damage unknown.
8:58 p.m., DISTURBANCE, WOHL CENTER-A radio call was made for a Transportation employee needing assistance in reference to a disturbance. Police units responded and suspects were instructed to leave the area.
Saturday, January 26
1:21 a.m., RESISTING ARREST, WOHL CENTER-Student was taken into custody for intoxication and underage possession of alcohol after refusing to cooperate with a university police officer.
11:51 p.m., JUDICIAL VIOLATION, RUBELMAN DORM-A student was found to be in possession of a large water bong. The student was referred to the judicial
administrator.
World Briefs
Tuesday, January 29th, 2002 | Rajas PargaonkarCheney says Arafat not
putting ”100 percent” effort toward peace
WASHINGTON (AP) – Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday questioned Yassir Arafat’s commitment to the Middle East peace process, citing the Palestinian leader’s link to Iran and the Hezbollah terrorist group.
Hours after a Palestinian suicide attack killed one person and wounded dozens in downtown Jerusalem, Cheney urged Arafat to make “a 100 percent good-faith effort” to halt the violence.
“We have been deeply disappointed by his inability or his unwillingness to control the terrorist threat launching from Palestine against Israeli civilians,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Cheney repeated White House assertions that Arafat knew about a recent shipment of weapons from Iran that was intercepted by Israeli commandoes.
On Friday, President Bush accused the Palestinian leader of “enhancing terror” and pressed him to accept responsibility for the arms-smuggling operation.
Arafat has denied any role, but Cheney said flatly, “We don’t believe him.”
“The really disturbing part of this, of course, is that there are a lot of places he could go in the Arab world if he were looking for support and sustenance or for help in moving the peace process forward,” Cheney told “Fox News Sunday.”
“Clearly, he hasn’t done that. What he’s done is gone to a terrorist organization, Hezbollah, and a state that supports and promotes terrorism, that’s dedicated to ending the peace process, Iran, and done business with them,” he said.
Cheney said Anthony Zinni, the U.S. envoy to the Middle East, would not return to the region until Arafat does more to halt the mounting violence there.
Afghan chief to seek
continuing U.S. security role
WASHINGTON (AP) – When Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s interim leader, meets President Bush on Monday, he is expected to seek a continuing U.S. commitment to help restore the peace in his violence-torn country, Afghan officials say.
Karzai arrived here Sunday afternoon, the first Afghan leader to visit Washington in 39 years.
Before leaving for the United States, Karzai told Afghan television that he would use the trip to push for the expansion of a multinational peacekeeping force into the rest of Afghanistan.
Afghan officials believe troops are needed in the countryside to deal with regional warlords and armed gangs. They also have indicated they want American troops to participate.
“This is the determination of the Afghan people,” Karzai said.
The Bush administration has resisted U.S. involvement in the 2,500-person British-led international security assistance force operating in Kabul. Thousands more troops are expected.
The Bush administration is undecided on how long U.S. troops, currently numbering about 4,000, should remain in Afghanistan.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said last week that American troops will remain in Afghanistan at least until the summer. The interim government steps down in June and will be replaced by a government selected by a national council.
Note with photos of missing WSJ reporter demand better treatment
NEW YORK (AP) – A group claiming to have seized a Wall Street Journal reporter missing in Pakistan said he was being held in “inhuman conditions” comparable to those of suspected terrorists in U.S. custody, the newspaper reported Sunday.
An e-mail from “The National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty” accused reporter Daniel Pearl of being a CIA officer posing as a journalist, The Journal reported Sunday on its Web site.
The newspaper said the e-mail was accompanied by four photographs of Pearl, with one showing him with a gun to his head, and demanded better treatment for fighters being held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba.
In Pakistan, police sources speaking on condition they not be identified, told The Associated Press they believe Pearl was kidnapped by Harkat ul-Mujahedeen, which has close ties to al-Qaida and is on the U.S. government’s terrorist organizations list. A number of Harkat fighters were known to have been killed in Afghanistan during the bombing campaign.
Pearl, 38, a reporter based in Bombay, India, has been missing since Wednesday, when he went to visit a source near Karachi, Pakistan, for a story about terrorism, the newspaper said.
Both the newspaper and the CIA denied that Pearl worked for the agency.
Bush to pledge $200 million for global AIDS fund
WASHINGTON (AP) – President George W. Bush will include a $200 million contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in his new budget proposal, the administration announced Sunday.
The money would be available in the budget year beginning October 1.
The United States donated $200 million in the current budget year.
“This fund will have worldwide impact on the world’s most devastating health threats,” Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said. “We must continue our fight against these diseases, which are devastating the world’s children and families.”
The U.N.-endorsed fund has accumulated $1.6 billion.
Bush’s pledge will consist of $100 million from HHS and another $100 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The announcement comes as the fund’s 18-member policy-setting board prepares to hold its first meeting Jan. 28-29 in Geneva. The agenda will include accepting new donations and adopting a framework to finalize management of the fund.
Some AIDS activists said Bush’s pledge is too little.
“While I’m heartened by his participation in this effort, a much larger sum is what I would like to see,” said Jim Mitulski, co-chairman of the Mayors HIV Health Services Council in San Francisco.
“We’re counting on the president to act as a statesman and counter the image that the Republican Party doesn’t care about social outcasts.”
Campus Briefs
Tuesday, January 29th, 2002 | Rajas PargaonkarNo more brown parking
permits available
According to Washington University’s Parking and Transportation Services, all of the allotted brown parking permits have been sold for this academic year. These permits allow campus residents to park on the South Forty, and no more permits are sold than spaces available. Until the old brown permits are returned, South Forty residents who wish to have a car on campus will have to buy an off-site permit for $35 that allows them to park on West Campus and take a shuttle to main campus.
Computer virus hits WU campus
Early Monday morning, an email virus began circulating amongst WU students. The virus is a worm identified as “W32.Myparty@mm” by the website of software company Symantec, which makes Norton AntiVirus Software.
According to Symantec’s website, the worm appears in the form of an email with the subject of “new photos from my party!” and contains a text message about a webpage with
pictures from a party, as well as an attachment named “www.myparty.yahoo.com.” Once opened, the message will forward itself to email addresses it finds in the user’s address book and in any email messages in the user’s mail folders.
While the virus will not affect most users, the worm will insert a backdoor Trojan Horse on computers running Windows NT, 2000 and XP, allowing a hacker to remotely control the computer system, according to Symantec. Symantec claims that recent versions of Norton AntiVirus can detect and remove the virus.
Law school dean boasts lengthy career
Tuesday, January 29th, 2002 | Rajas Pargaonkar
Thanks to the efforts of Joel Seligman, Dean of the Washington University School of Law, the recent introduction of the Loan Repayment Assistance Program will help many law students finance a career in public service. But Seligman’s work in helping students afford law school is only one of his many accomplishments. He has been active for years as a pre-eminent author, scholar and legal historian.
Former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Arthur Levitt joked at a law school conference that if the Library of Congress’ wing of historical documents on the nation’s markets were to burn down, the government simply could call Joel Seligman, with the request: “Could you just start from the beginning?”
To start from the beginning with Seligman’s career in law means starting with his father’s influence.
“My father had been a lawyer who very early in his career got swept up in World War II and participated in one of the non-criminal proceedings at Nuremburg. I grew up hearing stories about how he worked at the SEC during World War II at an agency called the War Production Board,” said Seligman.
In college, Seligman pursued his fascination with the government and private institutions as a student of political science, with the understanding that he would most likely attend law school.
His father played a major role in his decision to enter law school.
“My father went to Harvard Law School and died a few years before I finished college. That more than anything else encouraged me to apply to Harvard,” said Seligman.
Seligman expected to find his interests in constitutional law or labor law, but was instead fascinated with corporations.
“Somewhat to my surprise the course I liked the most at Harvard Law School was corporations. I had a wonderful professor of corporate law at Harvard Law School named Detlev Vhets. He made it clear that what corporate law was really about was the management of the most important economic entities in the country,” said Seligman.
Following his graduation from Harvard Law School, Seligman spent three years working for Ralph Nader, working on two books: one on corporate law, the other on the study of legal education.
“Unlike a lot of people who worked for Nader in cases or lobbied, I was a writer,” said Seligman.
While working for Nader, Seligman studied how federal corporate laws should be enforced, ultimately writing a 30-page memorandum on the subject that influenced the writing of a groundbreaking history of the SEC.
“When I began an academic career, I submitted something similar to that memo to a publisher and spent close to five years of my life writing a 700 page history of the SEC called The Transformation of Wall Street. That is probably the best single book I have ever worked on in my entire life,” said Seligman.
After four years as dean of the University of Arizona School of Law, Seligman stepped down from his post in 1998. He stated that his family’s roots in the Midwest played a major part in his decision to come to the WU School of Law.
Since coming to WU, Seligman has become a major part of both legal and undergraduate education. Through his course “Topics in Politics: The Supreme Court in United States History”, Seligman has tried to bring methods of legal teaching to the undergraduate level.
“An awful lot of undergraduates are interested in law. The method by which courses are taught at law school and the close analysis of statutes and cases, the question and answer process we call the Socratic method, is an effective teaching tool,” said Seligman.
Another teaching tool Seligman has employed is the use of role-playing. At a meeting of his Supreme Court class, he came dressed as Thomas Jefferson.
“We do a lot of role playing. I was trying to illustrate how cases mean different things to different parties. So I talked about Jefferson’s reaction to a very famous Supreme Court case called Marbury v. Madison,” said Seligman.
Aside from teaching, Seligman’s primary role at WU has been as dean of the school. As a dean, Seligman said, some of his greatest victories and obstacles have been in helping students afford legal education.
“I was very proud of the Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP) we adopted a few weeks ago. My greatest frustration as a dean both at Arizona and WU is [helping students manage] the extraordinary cost of attending legal education,” said Seligman.
Seligman held high hopes for the future of WU Law School, citing the increase in admissions over the last two years.
“I am really delighted with where the school appears to be progressing right now. We are making great faculty hires and we have had extraordinary interest in our school from applicants. Our admissions applications were up 32 percent last year, and they are up 40 percent this year which is really almost unbelievable,” said Seligman.
As the influence of WU School of Law in the legal community rises, Seligman pursues the goal of providing affordable legal education and, thanks to new developments at the law school, is confident about the future.
“We have adopted new programs such as our Harris Institute for Global Legal Studies and our Center for Interdisciplinary Studies so we can make [WU Law School] the best intellectual experience we can,” said Seligman.
Contact Rajas at
[email protected]