Academic

Where in South Texas is South Texas?

By Tim Zinnecker

Most of us probably know very little about other law schools, excluding those where we have been students or professors.  In this post I want to provide ten pieces of information about South Texas College of Law (?STCL?), where I began my teaching career in January 1994.

1.    STCL is located in Houston.  It shares the city with two other law schools:  UH and Texas Southern.  (For the record, TSU is farther ?south? than STCL.) 

2.    STCL began as a YMCA law school in the 1920's, graduating its first class (eleven students) in 1927.  In 1965 it became the first law school in Texas to award the J.D. degree to its graduates.  Law school co-founder Joseph Hutcheson, Jr., served as the first dean (1923-31), between stints as mayor of Houston (1917-18) and a federal appellate judge on the Fifth Circuit (1931-1964).  Excellent leadership in recent years (the ?Zinnecker era?) has been provided by Bill Wilks (former dean at Dickinson), Tom Read (former dean at Florida, Hastings, Tulsa, and Indiana-Indianapolis), and Jim Alfini (former dean at Northern Illinois).  The law school is expected to name its tenth dean within a few weeks.

3.    STCL enrolls approximately 1,200 students (of which approximately 75% are full-time students, approximately 45% are female students, and approximately 24% are diversity students).  Richard Anderson, the current chief executive officer of Delta Air Lines, is an alum.  So is noted athiest Madalyn Murray O?Hair.

4.    STCL has over 50 tenured (or tenure track) faculty members, including eight (next year, nine) colleagues who teach in our Legal Research and Writing program.  The faculty roster runs from ?A? (Dean Jim Alfini) to ?Z? (yours truly) and includes: a former special agent with the FBI, a winner of the prestigious Traynor Prize awarded at Virginia, a former editor-in-chief of the Indiana Law Journal, a Baylor Law School valedictorian, a parent of seven children, a Southern Baptist with a law degree from BYU (who does NOT have seven children), a colleague with an undergraduate degree from the famed Peabody Conservatory of Music at Johns Hopkins, and a member who lived in Moscow (Russia, not Idaho) until 1991, moving to America at the age of 19.  Recent visiting faculty members have included Minnesota professor Dale Carpenter and Missouri professor (and former dean) Dale Whitman.

5.    Two state appellate courts are tenants in STCL?s building.  (Can any other law school claim such a ?close? relationship with the judiciary?  I?ll overlook Yale?s ?pipeline? to SCOTUS.)

6.    The STCL advocacy program won its first national championship in 1980; it captured its 100th national championship in 2008.  (Who?s chanting, ?We?re #2.  We?re #2. ???)

7.      Volume 27 of the South Texas Law Review included contributions from William Brennan, Arthur Goldberg, William Rehnquist, and John Paul Stevens.  Volume 39 included a contribution from Clarence Thomas.  Volume 35 included a contribution from me.

8.    The STCL Student Bar Association sponsors an annual food drive which, in recent years, has placed STCL at (or near) the top of the list of donors to the Houston Food Bank.

9.    Fred Parks, an alum for whom the STCL library is named, once represented actress Hedy Lamarr in a divorce action.

10.    Federal Income Tax is a required course!

So, tell me about YOUR law school!

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on February 25, 2009 (boomark / email).