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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 20, 1997)
University of Oregon Eugene, Oregon mu mi »i An independent newspaper Volume 99, Issue 17 LAW SCHOOL SPECIAL EDITION — AUGUST 20,1997 INDEX Opinion 2 Sports 7 Moving Guide 11 Classifieds 14 Crossword 15 Horoscope 15 TODAY This is the last issue of the Emerald until Back to the Books on Sept. 22. Daily fall publication resumes Sept. 29. INSIDE The Oregon women’s soccer team will test themselves against some of the nation’s best Chicago’s Albert Belle blames himself for the team’s dismal play WEATHER Partly cloudy. High 80. Low 55. WILLIAM W. KNIGHT LAW CENTER COURTESY DRAWING This artist’s rendering shows what the William W. Knight Law Center will look like when it is completed in January 1999. Construction making progress C(We are required to replace every parking space that we displace. Jane Gordon Assistant Dean ■ BUILDING: Students should he able to start taking classes in the new building by the target date of January 1999 By Michael Hines Oregon Daily Emerald Construction of the new William W. Knight Law Center is on schedule, Jane Gordon, assistant dean of the law school, said. The building, which is being constructed on East 15th Avenue and Agate Street, should be finished by its January 1999 target date. Baring any major prob lems, Gordon said law students will start attending class in the new building during the winter term of 1999. A large amount of the funding for the school came as part of a $25 million gift from Nike, Inc. chairman of the board and CEO Phil Knight. The school will be named after Knight’s father, William. Funding for the school includes $10 million from Knight and more than $10 million from state bonds, and the rest will be privately raised. The entire project, Gordon said, will cost about $25.6 million. The school may do additional fund raising after con struction is completed, Gordon said. This may pay for additional furniture or other law school resources. The ground-breaking ceremony took place June 18. The ground-breaking was done by University Presi dent Dave Frohnmayer, Capital Campaign Chair John Jaqua and Charles O’Kelley, who was the law school dean at the time. The school chose ground-breaking on 15th Avenue and Alder Street carefully, Gordon said. The building is being built on the edge of campus, which is convenient for most University students, Gor don said. The building will not be in the middle of campus with the undergraduate classrooms, and that allows undergraduates to use a more compact center of cam pus. Law students, she said, can simply go to the new building for the day. “The law school [building] is being built to allow [the school] to be used by the University in a better Turn to BUILDING, Page 4 Law school rankings only part of picture ■ RANKINGS: A better way of choosing a school would be taking individual tastes into account and talking to alumni of the school By Carl Yeh Associate Editor If you applied to law schools, you might have looked at a publication of school rank ings like U.S. News Er World Report’s Best Graduate Schools Rankings. Did they mean anything then? More importantly, do they mean anything at all? Rennard Strickland, the new dean of the University Law School, doesn’t think so. i icci uiai 11 aniv ings] really come very close to de frauding students,” he said. “What we ought to be looking at is what fits a par ticular individual as opposed to a mythi cal ranking.” Jane Gordon, the law school’s Associ ate Dean of Stu dents, agreed with Strickland. “I try to ignore rankings. When there are rank ings, you should ask, MAKING A CHOICE ■ Talk to alumni { from the school ! ■ Talk to faculty j about the reputa tion of the school I ■ Spend a day or two at every school you are considering ■ Look carefully at the criteria of ranking when us ing them ‘are these the things I really value?’ before you put any stock in it. ” Celeste James, Senior Media Relations Manager for U.S. News Er World Report, sees the publication as a how-to guide rather than an absolute measure of the quality of a school. “This is a guide that is meant to be a start for a student who is looking for a universi ty,” she said. “We want them to look at the rankings as well as the articles inside that ad vise them how to get more financial aid, for example.” “The rankings merely give students a way Turn to RANKINGS, Page 4 Dean Rennard Strickland shares thoughts on law student training STRICKLAND By Carl Yeh Associate Editor A new state-of-the-art law school is being built. A new entering class will be the first to graduate in the 21st century. All this and a new dean to boot. Rennard Strickland, a renowned Native American legal scholar and former Okla homa City University law dean, is the new dean of the University Law School. He was selected in April to replace Charles O’Kelley. In a recent interview with the Oregon Dai ly Emerald, he revealed that he is no stranger to the West Coast and that he has strong beliefs on how law school students should be trained for the 21st century. Q Describe your education and experience. A | I taught at the University of Washington in Seattle in the mid 70s. In the late 70s and RENNARD STRICKLAND early '80s, I was involved with the publication of the Handbook of Federal Indian Law, [of] which I was editor-in-chief, and Charlie Wilkinson, who was then on the [Oregon Law School] faculty, was the managing editor. So, we did a lot of work on that book here in [Grayson Hall]. I don’t normally tell people this, but I was on the American Bar Association (ABA) site visit team that atthe end of the ’80s really produced the kind of miraculous restoration of this law school. We were not a very popular group at the time, (laughs) But Frohnmayer came on after that and forged ahead with the hiring of a really quite stunning group of young faculty about six to eight years ago. My field of specialty is American Indian law. So, I really have to be in a place—at least from my work standpoint—a Native American population. QSo, you're not new to this law school or to j this area either. AjRi9ht QWhat about Eugene in particular do you en i joy? Aj I am enjoying—and I am told that this does n’t continue all year—the summer. I come from an area where 100 and 105 degrees with 85 percent humidity is not unusual this time ofthe year. So, I particularly enjoy watching television and seeing people be prepared to deal with the “crisis" of the temperature breaking into the ’90s. I think the thing that is really quite marvelous about Eugene is that it is a community in which people still have a sense of the possible. It’s a place where peoplareally believe that good things Turn to STRICKLAND, Page 3 THE NEW DEAN ■ WHO: Rennard Strickland ■ WHAT: New Dean of law school ■ HONORS: Spirit of Excellence Award from the ABA Commission on Minorities in the Profession, Re gent's Award from University of Okla homa, Distin guished Service Citation from the American Indian Coalition of Tulsa