Professionalism Programs
Cooley Student Mediation Board
Cooley students trained in mediation under the Michigan Court Rules volunteer their time to help confidentially resolve personal conflicts between students and practice their mediation skills.
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Cultural Competence Workshops
A series of five workshops supporting professional development in cross-cultural competencies are offered to Cooley students to expose them to, and teach them to advise and counsel, a diverse clientele in a sensitive, supportive, and effective manner. The Center's workshops feature speakers, interactive instruction, and student-facilitated workgroups covering five core competencies: (1) communication; (2) cognition; (3) reference; (4) resource; and (5) relationship. Students learn to recognize their own professionally influenced and their clients' culturally influenced habits, viewpoints, capacities, and practices so as to be able to adjust and adapt and thereby provide more professional counsel. The workshops have been incorporated into the Pathway course.
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Professional Development and Mentoring
The Center for Ethics, Service, and Professionalism promotes professional development not just of its students, but also its faculty and staff. Professional development activities sponsored through the Center include development of a faculty professionalism portfolio, conferences with area faculty, mentoring opportunities for Cooley faculty, a mentoring pilot program to run in conjunction with the State Bar of Michigan that matches Cooley students intending to practice in Michigan with Michigan lawyers, and a professionalism orientation for new students at each campus during which area lawyers and judges meet in small groups with the newest Cooley students to talk about ethics and professionalism.
Additional mentoring and professional development opportunities exist at each campus.
At Auburn Hills, the D. Augustus Straker Bar Association has offered lawyer mentors to Cooley students since 2007. Networking and professionalism opportunities include a Cooley Alumni Networking event attended by 25 alumni and 40 students, and a State Bar of Michigan Law Practice Management section panel presentation attended by 30 students.
In Lansing, Amy Timmer has worked with Dean Charles Toy of the Career and Professional Development (CPD) office and faculty at Oakland University to write a grant proposal for a five-year mentoring study involving Cooley students mentored by lawyers from the State Bar of Michigan and Cooley alumni around the country. In the meantime, the portfolio and the Pathway course both require students to experience “mentoring episodes” in meetings with lawyers and students are provided with resources for finding those lawyers, including sections of the State Bar of Michigan. Professional development opportunities are offered in Lansing primarily through the CPD office.
The Grand Rapids campus reports great success with the Professionalism Orientation program for incoming students and their own SMART (Structured Mentoring as Assessment of Relevant Training) Program. The SMART program matches lawyers who can articulate what it means to be a competent lawyer with students who are interested in learning how to focus their study efforts to become better lawyers. In 2009 two area attorneys, former State Bar of Michigan President Scott Brinkmeyer with Mika, Meyers, Becket & Jones, and Ben Symko, attorney with the Kent County Public Defender’s office and Cooley graduate, hosted 15 students on three separate mentoring occasions. As part of the program students are asked to share what they learned in a brief memo.
A few of the professional development opportunities offered to Grand Rapids students in 2009 included a congratulatory and networking event for the top performing students at a Grand Rapids Griffins hockey game, also attended by alumni and faculty; a legislative reception at the McCabe-Marlowe House in Grand Rapids sponsored by the West Michigan Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; a State Bar of Michigan Section Fair where students were able to network with attorney representatives from numerous sections and participate in presentations that highlighted the goals and objectives of a few of the Sections, as well as the benefits of being a student member; and a presentation by Brent McBurney, National Director of Christian Legal Aid and Attorney Ministries, from Springfield, Virginia called “Service Above Self: Answering the Call,” which was sponsored by Mel Trotter Ministries and the Grand Rapids area Christian Legal Society.
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Professionalism Portfolio and Pathway to Success Course
Every student at Cooley is offered the opportunity to create, throughout enrollment, a Professionalism Portfolio that requires self-reflection and training in personal responsibility, ethics, and service, documents the student's professional identity development and personal code of conduct, and offers employers insight into an applicant’s knowledge, skills, ethics, and character. Over 50% initial participation is consistently achieved in the professionalism portfolio program since it was first introduced school-wide in January 2007, and the continued participation rate averages 40% at all campuses. Participating students have received the benefits of better connections and planning while in law school as a result of this program. The program is housed on Cooley’s portal where the term-appropriate exercises and recorded presentations are available. Students are also invited to group meetings each term.
The Lansing campus consistently attracts over half of the incoming class into this the portfolio through announcements during orientation. Students sometimes withdraw from the program later, but the rate at which students disengage has dramatically decreased since the introduction of a Center staff person at each campus. Total Lansing JD enrollment is 2153, with 915 of these students engaged in the portfolio program. This reflects a continued participation rate of 42%. Enrollment among 2009 matriculates at the Lansing campus is 52%.
The Grand Rapids campus currently has 304 of 668 JD students actively participating. This shows a continued voluntary participation rate of 46%. In 2009 participation rates each term for new Grand Rapids students have averaged around 67%. Including older students and recent graduates in the portfolio meetings has elicited positive comments. The students have been able to ask pertinent questions of their peers to assist with timely concerns as they progress through their legal studies.
At the Auburn Hills campus the voluntary participation rates for incoming students in Michaelmas Term 2009 was 84%. Continued participation rates among Auburn Hills students is 25%, which reflects voluntary involvement of 195 of Auburn Hills' 786 JD students.
In Ann Arbor, Heather Spielmaker handles portfolio activities and students until a staff person can be hired for that campus. The Professionalism Portfolio Program is off to a great start at the Ann Arbor campus, with 75% of their first class participating.
In 2008, Deans Timmer and Zelenski brought a course-component to the portfolio, to draw those students who prefer having a classroom structure. Joined by Cooley’s Distinguished Jurist U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Suhrheinrich, they developed and now teach at the Lansing campus a two-credit elective course called Pathway to Success: Your Career and Portfolio. Students complete all portfolio exercises, plus additional work meant to focus them on understanding themselves and their career options. The course runs over five terms so that the Deans can develop and maintain close relationships with the students. The course will be taught at the other campuses in 2010.
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Public School Mentoring and Assistance Programs
The Center for Ethics, Service, and Professionalism encourages programming with local public schools, to improve the education of all and to interest students in continuing their education and even considering law school.
In Saginaw area schools, Auburn Hills faculty member Professor Monica Nuckolls and her father, Hon. M.T. Thompson, Jr., developed and implement a drug education and crime prevention program called Making Choices and Facing Consequences, an evidence-and field-tested drug education and crime prevention program designed to:
- Promote the development of personal self-management skills through
decision making exercises that allow children and young adults to examine
real life situations and consider the choices and consequences presented
by each situation;
- Teach children and young adults what constitutes unlawful and risky
behavior and how to avoid dangerous and unsafe situations; and
- Promote responsible citizenship and appropriate behavior standards.
Drug education and character training is delivered through a set of real life stories about children and young adults. The characters in the stories come from the same type of neighborhoods, share similar backgrounds, and face the same type of problems, pressures and temptations as the young adults we are trying to reach. Each story presents the character(s) with one or more critical choices. The lesson is clear: good choices have good consequences and bad choices have bad consequences. The choices have urgency and meaning for the young adults who face many of the same choices on a daily basis. The beauty of the program is the power of the stories, the way they are told, the way they engage children and young adults, and the teaching opportunities they present. Working through these real life situations improves the young adult’s decision making skills. It also develops a what-are-my-choices, what-are-my-consequences approach to decision making.
The Making Choices and Facing Consequences curriculum has been endorsed by Superintendents from the Saginaw, Bridgeport, and Carrollton Public School Districts, and the Saginaw Police Chiefs’ Association. It has also been successfully used in the Saginaw Public Schools’ 21st Century Program, Bridgeport-Spaulding Schools, Carrollton Public Schools, Buena Vista Public Schools, Saginaw County Juvenile Detention Center, and the Saginaw Community Foundation’s Youth First Program.
In the Pontiac public schools, the Auburn Hills Center for Ethics offers character based educational programs. At Pontiac High School, Center faculty and Cooley students promote ethics and professionalism and mentor students through the Success on Saturdays and Thrive on Thursdays programs, and serve as academic tutors, teacher aides, and mentors to Pontiac students. The Center also coordinates the Collaborative for a Certainty of Opportunity, which brings corporate partners to Pontiac schools to offer educational and career opportunities to Pontiac school students. In 2009, Pontiac High School students visited the Auburn Hills campus to meet with law students, and to attend the live Michigan Supreme Court oral arguments: 40 Pontiac High School students, assisted by 19 Cooley students, attended a luncheon with the Michigan Supreme Court Justices and observed live oral arguments before the Michigan Supreme Court in the new appellate court room. Dean Martha Moore and other Cooley volunteers held weekly meetings at Pontiac High School and Dean Moore conducted her character education program at Will Rogers Elementary School in Auburn Hills.
Pontiac High School students also had a field trip to the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, which included the participation of one Cooley student, and an additional field trip to Cooley’s Auburn Hills campus where 25 Pontiac High School students attended Dean Nussbaumer’s Criminal Law class followed by a luncheon with faculty members and the Black Law Student Association to discuss the criminal law topics and law school.
In an effort to reduce school violence in the Lansing public schools, the Center offers the Peer Mediation Program through which Cooley students teach mediation and conflict resolution, and act as mentors, to public school students. The Center expanded this program to St. Andrews academy in Grand Rapids and the 7th Day Adventist Church School in Lansing.
Since 1994, Professor Wonch has trained thousands of students in area elementary, middle, and high schools to be peer mediators. She began the involvement of Cooley students in this project in 2003, the year following her arrival at Cooley. This project involves training students in facilitative mediation skills. Facilitative mediation is the foundation for the advanced mediation class at Cooley and also is the required method for certification in Michigan for mediators who wish to be included in the list of court approved mediators. Professor Wonch trains approximately 24 Cooley students each year in the basics of facilitative mediation. Many of them have gone on to take the advanced mediation class and to become mediators as lawyers. While they were involved in the Cooley Peer Mediation project they had the opportunity to mentor elementary, middle and high school students in peer mediation.
Since 2003, over 150 Cooley students and 600 public and private school students have been trained to be peer mediators. Nancy has also provided many more with the basic principals of facilitative mediation with special presentations to students at the Michigan Supreme Court, Youth in Government, Cub Scouts, Michigan State University, and visits to other schools like Pontiac Middle School. Additionally she has trained nearly 100 high school students in the principles of interest based negotiation as a kind of "advanced" conflict resolution skill when they are in their second year of our program. Our Cooley students benefit in several ways from this program. They learn the fundamentals of facilitative mediation and interest based negotiation. They mentor and lead school students in our community. They are, in turn, mentored by Nancy and her training partner Anne Smiley. Frequently they develop or enhance existing interests in ADR that carry through to their legal careers. The development of healthy, non-violent, peaceful problem solving and dispute resolution methods in all of the students we teach is the primary objective of the Peer Mediation project. In 2006, this project received the Nanci S. Klein award from the State Bar of Michigan Alternative Dispute Resolution Section "in recognition of its significant contributions to the field of community-based dispute resolution."
Diligence by many at the Grand Rapids campus in 2009 resulted in several positive strides in connecting with one area school. East Kentwood High School (EKHS) received assistance from ten Cooley students in preparing for a regional “We The People” competition where high school students are tested on their knowledge of the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights. East Kentwood High School also offers the peer jurors for Grand Rapids Teen Court. Eighteen students from EKHS joined 12 Cooley students and 13 paralegal students from Davenport University at the Grand Rapids campus to view the Michigan Supreme Court (MSC) oral argument simulcast from the Auburn Hills campus. The students also participated in a briefing prior to the hearing and discussion afterward. Professor Chris Hasting boarded the East Kentwood school bus to answer questions and stimulate debate as the students headed back to school.
In addition to extending the invitation to Davenport University’s paralegal students for the Supreme Court oral argument simulcast, the Center has made a conscious effort to connect with other area universities and colleges. This effort has provided a platform for the Center to showcase the Grand Rapids campus and to educate undergraduate students and their mentors about law school and the opportunities a legal career offers. For example, the Grand Rapids Center for Ethics invited and hosted ROTC cadets from Western Michigan University, Grand Valley State University, Calvin College and Cornerstone University, along with their Captain, for breakfast and a tour of the campus. Following the tour, they accompanied faculty, staff, and students to Stand Down 2009. The Cadets acted as guides and accompanied the veterans to each of the service providers at Stand Down.
Pontiac Schools
The Center for Ethics, Service, and Professionalism Auburn Hills faculty members have developed a close and supportive relationship with the Pontiac public school system, and have an especially close relationship with Pontiac Northern. Joan Vestrand founded and operates the Success On Saturdays (SOS) program at Pontiac Northern High School, offered every other Saturday from September through December and January to June. In 2008, programs included:
- A field trip to the Detroit Institute of Arts for a program on Depicting Diversity in Art.
- A field trip to Tiger Stadium for a Tigers game and a program for high school students on careers in professional sporting environments.
- A program on Goal Setting for Success.
- A program on Choices and Consequences produced by the Pontiac fraternity Phi Alpha Phi.
- Attendance at the Oakland County Bar Association's Youth Law Conference for a day of programming on careers in the law.
- A field trip to the Greenfield Village Museum to see an exhibit on costumes and pop culture.
- A field trip to Michigan State University for admissions information, a campus tour and lunch in a dormitory cafeteria.
- Attendance at the Oakland County Bar Association's Diversity Dinner at the Townsend Hotel where Pontiac Northern students and their Cooley mentors were seated for the evening with lawyers and judges who sponsored their attendance to the event. The event highlighted the importance of pipeline programs such as Cooley's SOS program with Pontiac Northern.
- A reprise of the popular Freedom Writers Diary program which included a viewing of the film, small group discussion of its lessons and every high school student's receipt of a copy of the novel on which the movie is based, and a journal to begin their own journaling.
In 2008, Cooley also helped Pontiac Northern in the following ways:
- We have provided ongoing financial support to Pontiac Northern senior Sequoia Coleman. Cooley students and faculty donated $500 in order that Sequoia could repair her car to ensure her continued ability to get to school (she resides outside of the district), $500 in gift cards and cash and needed baby items, a complete Thanksgiving dinner; a complete Christmas including gifts for Sequoia and her family and food for Christmas dinner.
- We supplied nine other Pontiac Northern families with complete Thanksgiving dinners.
- We supplied nine other Pontiac Northern families with complete Christmases, including groceries for Christmas dinner.
- Our students have continued to tutor students at Pontiac Northern in the after school tutoring program.
- Auburn Hills Cooley student Barry Malone served as a teacher's aide all year in a Pontiac Northern Advanced Government class.
- Auburn Hills Cooley student Zenovia Evans regularly mentors a group of Pontiac Northern students meeting with them weekly.
- Our students partnered with the Oakland County Bar Association to supply more than 200 prom dresses and funds for tuxedos for the 2008 prom.
- We continue to attend Pontiac Northern events such as Homecoming and Open Houses. Dean Vestrand served as Mistress of Ceremonies (Grand Marshal) of Pontiac Northern's 2008 Homecoming Parade.
Lansing Schools
For years, Professor Nancy Wonch has operated the Lansing School District Peer Mediation Program, which she developed in an effort to stem violence in Lansing schools. Through this program, Nancy trains Cooley law students in mediation and conflict resolution and those Cooley students then train Lansing school children in the same skills. The Cooley students also act as mentors to the Lansing school children they train. Cooley’s Center for Ethics/Lansing School District Peer Mediation Program received a grant from the Capital Region Community Foundation to help bring this valuable peer mediation option for conflict resolution into all of Lansing’s public high schools, with a goal of reducing violence in the schools.
This year Nancy trained 23 Cooley students and together they trained 45 Lansing Eastern High School and 23 Sexton High School students in facilitative mediation and negotiation skills.
Eastern and Sexton peer mediators have mediated hundreds of cases for students in their schools and they have a success rate that approaches 80%. They are also trusted enough by faculty at Eastern to mediate disputes between students and faculty, which is very unusual and demonstrates the strength of the program at Eastern. The Cooley peer mediation students meet regularly with their high school counterparts to offer additional training and support.
Starting in 2009, Cooley peer mediators will work with Advent House and the City of Lansing to teach conflict management skills to clients of Advent House in the hopes of reducing violence within the facility. Nancy has also agreed to assist the Grand Rapids campus in starting a peer mediation program at St. Andrew's Elementary School.
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Student Wellness
Wellness programming in law schools is becoming increasingly important because of the stress experienced by law students in many facets of their lives. A law school's approach to wellness programming should be holistic and address wellness in all aspects, including social, financial, physical, emotional, career, and spiritual wellness. Assistant Dean Cynthia Ward has taken responsibility for student wellness programs and is assessing wellness programming currently offered at the law school by student organizations and other departments. The hope is to bring together the programming under one wellness umbrella to underscore the importance of wellness in the profession. Several wellness programs that were coordinated through or in conjunction with the Dean of Students Office are highlighted below.
2010 Programs
Social Networking Workshop: This workshop is designed to educate students about ethical and professionalism issues in using social media.
Social Media Audit: Dean Ward offers an "Audit" of students' social media accounts and usage. Dean Ward conducts a one-on-one interview with the student and reviews the student's social media accounts.
Wellness Wednesday Series: This is a new interactive Student Wellness Series in collaboration with the State Bar of Michigan's Lawyers and Judges Assistance Program happening in Michaelmas term 2010. See the portal Bulletin Board for specifics about time and location.
Wellness Programs Bulletin Board: The law school community now has a designated place to post wellness related activities on the Portal. Various programs are posted on the bulletin board, such as free yoga classes, 5K races, and intramural teams formation.
Downtown Lansing YMCA Wellness Center hosted two open houses for Cooley students, organized through Enrollment and Student Services.
2009 Programs
Taste of Love Meal
Church members contacted the Dean of Students Office because they wanted to give back to Cooley students based on the positive interactions they have experienced whenever Cooley students attend the church. Deacon Wilson suggested a "Taste of Love" meal for the students. The Christian Legal Society coordinated the meal/barbeque prepared by members of Galilee Baptist Church in Lansing. Approximately 30 students attended the free "Taste of Love" meal, which was held at the church.
Guided Meditation: Martha Burkett of the State Bar of Michigan’s Lawyers and Judges Assistance Program led a guided meditation for students to help them relax and focus before exam week. The program was arranged through the Dean of Students Office and sponsored by the American Bar Association/Law Student Division.
Financial Responsibility Seminar: The majority of state bar authorities, including Michigan, require graduates to have attended to their debts or risk being denied admission to the Bar. Dean Ward, working with the Career and Professional Development Office, spoke about financial responsibility and its impact on bar admission. Dean Ward tells students “you will have debt; you simply cannot have overdue, unpaid, or neglected debt.” The Financial Responsibility lecture benefits students by preparing them to address unpaid and neglected debts well before it is time to apply to the Bar, teaching them the fundamentals of consumer rights and debt management and the necessary skills to respond to debt collection, and encouraging them to become more financially responsible.
Ethics of the Job Search Process: Dean Ward, working with the Career and Professional Development Office, presents on ethical issues that can arise during job searches. Dean Ward discusses ethics in the entire job process from resume drafting, sending out resumes, getting an interview, interviewing, getting a job offer, accepting/declining the offer, and beginning employment.
Crisis Counseling Services: When a crisis happens involving a student or impacting the student body, crisis counselors are made available to students who wish to utilize the services. Counselors through the Lawyers and Judges Assistance Program have been very responsive in this regard.
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