On Friday, October 16, Gonzaga University School of Law hosted the 9th Annual West Coast Consortium for Academic Support Professionals Conference. It was held it virtually. The theme for this year’s conference was ASP Past, Present, and Future: Breaking Down Institutional Barriers.
When I volunteered to host the conference last fall, I had no idea it would end up being such a highly attended conference! Generally, for the regional conferences, you only get regional ASP’ers with maybe one or two others from neighboring regions. Due to the virtual nature, we had a much higher attendance rate than we probably would have had otherwise. There were nearly 100 registrants to the conference, representing over 60 different law schools.
So, while Covid-19 prevented us from our usual in-person meetings, it pushed us into a virtual world in which a regional conference had a nationwide reach!
We had AMAZING presentations from ASP’ers across the country. The topics discussed included removing stigma from ASP classes, student engagement influence on their success, dismantling bar exam gatekeeping, remote learning generating more access to education, supporting first-gens, and team approaches to overcoming institutional barriers.
Our keynote speaker, Marsha Griggs from Washburn University School of Law, presented on where the community of ASP goes from here as we move into this new time in which we find ourselves. I want to share my two major take-aways from her presentation.
Marsha posed the question, “What if you applied every message you teach your students to your own professional choices?” It is not a complicated question, but it gave me pause. It forced me into a reflective space where I realized that I don’t do that. I am not certain I ever have as an educator.
I tell my students never to apologize for asking a clarifying question or needing to seek assistance when they come into my office. And yet, I apologize for things all the time as if it’s now a required part of speech. I apologized for seeking support when I realized how many attendees were joining us for the conference. Clearly, I need to take my own advice!
The second piece of advice I give my students that I haven’t always seamlessly followed is regarding self-advocacy. I am constantly telling my students they need to be good self-advocates, that developing and refining this skill will translate well in their future, for themselves and for their clients. I tell them that they cannot be shy about asking questions or asking for something they identify they need.
Reflecting on Marsha’s question, I thought about my own short-comings when it comes to self-advocacy. So, I propose that I start looking at it this way- when I advocate for myself at my institution, I’m also advocating for ASPer’s across the country. I’m advocating for any ASP person who comes to this institution after me. It is bigger than one person, and it’s important that we all share that responsibility so that we can continue to demand respect for our profession in the larger world of legal academia.
It’s critical that I continue in the way my predecessor did to advocate the importance of ASP to the leadership in the school. It’s critical to keep the momentum going and to continue moving ASP into the mainstream of the culture at our institutions. It’s critical to let leadership know that ASP’ers have valuable points of view to contribute to faculty meetings and curricular decisions.
So, I am making a commitment to myself and to our community to do better with stopping the auto-apologies for asking for help. I am committing to engage in more active self-advocacy and ASP/BP advocacy at my institution; to not be afraid to speak up and say what is necessary for this department to be viewed as just as integral to the legal education as clinical and legal writing; and to continue doing all that I can to keep pushing our programming forward so it’s as effective as it can be for our students!
I am confident in saying that this year’s conference was a success. I credit that success to our panel of speakers (Joni Wiredu, Marsha Griggs, Tiffane Cochran, Sara Berman, Yolanda Ingram, Christina Chong, Kinyon Devin, and Mary Purvis), our sponsor AccessLex, Lyssa Thaden at AccessLex, and Vicky Daniels at Gonzaga University School of Law. Thank you to all of you for your help and participation! And, of course, thank you, ASP’ers for the invigorating and uplifting conference! It was much needed!
(Michele Berger)
