Southwestern has opened a new Student Resource Center to help Southwestern students enhance their academic performance. The Student Resource Center is a joint effort of the Academic Support Program, the Dean’s Fellow Program and the Writing Center. The grand opening was held on Sept. 8.

“Both events were very well-attended,” said Robert Mena, director of Student Affairs. Mena said that the creation of the center was a collaborative effort between faculty and the offices of the Dean, Diversity Affairs, Academic Support and Student Affairs.

“Upon entering Southwestern, first-year students quickly realize that law school is a completely different animal,” said Mena. “You may have done extremely well in undergrad, but law school challenges you to the greatest degree. In addition, upper division students realize that this challenge continues past your first year. The center was created to help in all of these academic phases of law school.” Read the full story

Exciting things are happening at Southwestern. Yesterday, almost 150 of Southwestern’s recent graduates, students, and faculty came together to help launch a new innovative giving program: the Honors Program Members Challenge. Over wine and hors d’oeuvres, students mingled with recent alumni and networked, while graduates had the opportunity to catch up with their former classmates. There was plenty to talk about. Alumni were energized not just because they were reconnecting with the school and their friends, but also because of the tremendous innovations and changes that have occurred at Southwestern in recent years.

In 2007, the Carnegie Foundation recognized Southwestern’s first-year curricular reforms in a seminal and widely distributed report on legal education. The Carnegie Foundation also selected Southwestern as one of ten schools nationally - the only school in California, other than Stanford - to participate in a groundbreaking follow-up study to its 2007 report. Beginning in January 2009, the Association of American Law Schools’ Journal of Legal Education will be based out of Southwestern. Prior to Southwestern, the Journal had been edited out of Georgetown and before that Vanderbilt. And recently, Southwestern was honored as the first law school in the nation invited to take advantage of the Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Fellowships offered by the John Hazard Institute of Hanover.

Alumni were also told how the school is a different place than it was a decade ago. With lower attrition rates (under 5%), substantial grading reforms, and a revised curriculum, the day-to-day life of students at the school has dramatically changed. Gone are the days of the myths and rumors (never true) that Southwestern “dropped” large segments of its entering classes. With a more friendly student-centered approach to law school, as well as the creation of the new Student Resource and Writing Centers, the Office of Diversity Affairs, and the re-energized Office of Student Affairs, many alumni were enthusiastic about Southwestern’s future. Perhaps the announcement that received the most attention, however, was when alumni were told of Dean Garth’s steps to purchase the building across the street, and how he is aggressively moving forward with the building of dorms - something that in three or four years will transform Southwestern’s campus.

Of course, the Honors Challenge is itself one of these initiatives designed to make Southwestern, already a great school, even better. The Honors Challenge is straightforward enough in its goals: it seeks to raise the school’s profile and strengthen the school’s alumni-student network. Current students in the school’s four honors programs - Law Review, Law Journal, Moot Court Honors Program, and Trial Advocacy Honors Program - are competing to obtain the highest percentage of recent alumni who give to the school’s Annual Fund. Every alumnus within the past ten years, who was a member of an honors group, is part of the Honors Challenge. The student group with the highest alumni participation rate will win the challenge and an award. The Honors Challenge will run from September 23 through December 15. The concept is based on similar fundraising challenges being used effectively by law schools across the nation, including Boston University, Georgetown, UCLA, USC, and Yale. Recognizing the importance of reaching out to all students and every alum, next year the school plans to expand this pilot program significantly.

Programs like the Honors Challenge are critically important for the school. Alumni support is the life-blood of any law school, and Southwestern is no exception. The school’s Annual Fund provides the law school with much needed funds to support scholarships, the law library, faculty research, and student groups. Fundraising is essential to compete with our peer law schools. Yet having alumni contribute to the school - even in small amounts - is important for another reason. A high participation rate acts as a signal that alumni are invested in the school’s success: a key consideration for the various accreditation and ranking agencies that view alumni giving rates as a proxy for “customer satisfaction.” Because the message that a high participation rate sends is so important, faculty and staff were asked to give back to the school this summer. Currently, almost 80% of Southwestern’s faculty and 75% of its staff contribute to the school’s Annual Fund.

We ended at 8:30 p.m., after three hours of great conversations and reconnecting with old friends (long after the last hors d’oeuvres were gone!). It was clear alumni left feeling good about having reestablished their commitment to Southwestern, knowing that their alma mater is on the rise.

Written by Austen Parrish, Vice Dean for Academic Affairs

Past accusations that there is no “yo” in their “fro-yo” has done little to shorten the lines at our nearby PINKBERRY. Although, no yogurt means no healthy bacterial cultures, which means no benefits to your health, something about the creamy, tarty goodness has captured consumers in what has to be called a pseudo-health craze fad that is still going strong. Pinkberry has done to yogurt what Starbucks has done to coffee - ingeniously coaxing their consumers to open their wallets for a product they didn’t know they needed at a price that would make you do a double-take.

Tempting, no?

Like any true icon, Pinkberry is not without its imitators. The presence of our local Pinkberry has transformed the social scene of Koreatown. The result is a “berry-something Pinkberry wannabe” on every other corner. Any coffee shop wanting to remain competitive is probably not without a yogurt machine either. There are several yogurt shops in the vicinity that may satisfy your tart tooth just as well as Pinkberry. BOBATIME on the corner Seventh Street and Vermont Avenue; CAFÉ AMERICANO, which serves Polar Monkey on Wilshire Boulevard and Wilton Place; SNOWBERRY on Western Avenue and Sixth Street; and ICEBERRY on Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue are all decent alternatives. And that is good for the yogurt-loving consumer who wants a variety of choices.

But do any of them really beat out the famous berry of the pink variety? What kind of new spin can be made to a product famous for being “plain”? The answer is: nothing. True, there are other flavors such as green tea, coffee, mango, or whatever berry is in season. But can the now over-commercialized yogurt ever reach a fullness and depth of flavors as it reveals itself onto your taste buds? Can any variation of yogurt have that sinful “je ne sais quoi” feeling that makes you, upon first bite, let out an involuntary “mmmm”? Can yogurt make you scream?

I, for one, really don’t think so.

Yogurt can’t make you scream like the real thing can. There’s a reason we scream for ice cream. And the following places will show you why. Here are the top picks for the best ice cream in town.

Check out ICEPAN at La Brea Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard. The ice cream is made right in front of you with no added preservatives. Just choose your flavor and milk. Yes, milk. On a diet? You can cut the fat by choosing non-fat milk. Lactose intolerant? They have soy milk! Icepan may be a little far away from your home away from home (aka the SW library), but the banana ice cream with soy milk is quite honestly to die for.

If nutritional facts aren’t your main concern when consuming frozen delights, and a little adventurous fun is what you seek, check out SCOOPS at 712 N. Heliotrope Drive. The unconventional, inventive, and inspired flavors of ice cream are deliciously creamy indulgences. A must-try is the house specialty: brown bread - which is most likely the only flavor you know you’ll be able to get your hands on. Other than that, flavors change daily, making every visit an eagerly awaited surprise. Keep an eye out for salty dark chocolate, vanilla Jack Daniels, Oreo maple, bacon caramel, and strawberry basil, to name a few. And just when you thought the enticing flavors were alluring enough to warrant a trip, check out their prices. Two scoops for $2.50. Irresistible. No wonder there is always a line out the door.

With choices like these, there’s no excuse but to give your tart tooth a break and indulge your ever-so-neglected sweet tooth. Accept the imitation no more.

Written by Jeannie Y. Kang, 3L

There is much controversy over the use of cell phones in public places, and as technology continues to develop, the debate becomes greater. Many restaurants now state in their menus that cell phone use is not allowed in the dining room.

But what does that exactly mean? Does that refer to someone talking on their cell phone, or does that include texting and surfing the internet? While the invention of cell phones has made the world more connected and more portable, many people argue that cell phones have simultaneously made the world louder and busier.

The biggest controversy in cell phone usage stems from people talking on the phone in public places. Many think it is inappropriate for people to talk on their phones during meals or while they are out shopping. Most of us have experienced that slow person in the grocery store line that is so busy chatting away about something exceptionally boring that it takes them five times longer to pay for items than it should. More than one of us has contemplated telling these people: “Honestly, it is great that your friend had an amazing date last night, but ice cream melts, and you are taking forever to get through the line.”

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While talking on the phone in public is bothersome, texting, arguably, is a different story altogether. Texting is quiet and private. It does not disturb the other people around, and it stops people from talking on the phone in public places because they are texting instead of talking. The only time that texting becomes a problem is when someone is out to dinner and instead of engaging in conversation with the party that is actually there, they proceed to text away with people who did not even have the courtesy to come to dinner. It is frustrating having to repeat questions because people are too intent on texting to listen to what you have to say. If the conversation, via text, is that intense or important, then the texter should reserve time in the day to have a conversation instead of sending lengthy, multi-page text messages.

Texting while out in bars, nightclubs, or pubs is something entirely different then texting during dinner. When people are seen texting while enjoying nightlife, it gives the illusion that they could be someplace different, and had they not been convinced into going out with the current company, they would, perhaps, have been someplace better, cooler, and hipper. This can be seen all over LA: people in the corner of a club that has music blasting from wall to wall, texting away. People can text at home. It is not necessarily rude to text while enjoying the nightlife, but it makes it seem as if the person on the phone does not know how to have a good time on his own, and instead must use a cell phone to entertain himself.

In defense of chronic cell phone users, society has fostered the need to constantly be on one’s cell. There was a time that someone would call a house looking for a certain person, and if they were not there, then the person calling would have to leave a message and have that person respond when he or she returned home. Then there were actual car phones that were literally mounted to the car; people suddenly had more of a chance of catching the person that they would like to talk to on the first attempt.
Finally, the current cell phones were released - phones that are portable enough to be taken anywhere. Suddenly, people think that it is rude if they call people on their cell, and the person they are calling does not answer. Actually, it seems that the same people who hate it when people talk on the phone at dinner or at line in the supermarket are the same people who break into pandemonium when they are unable to reach a friend on his cell - the kind of person that will call a cell phone five times in 10 minutes in hopes that the person will finally answer the phone.

While society has fostered the immediacy of calls to cell phones to be answered, society has made all e-mail “emergency mail.” With the advent of PDAs flooding the market, it is not a surprise that now people expect their emails to be answered immediately, like a text message. People feel that because there are PDAs, like Blackberries or iPhones, there is no reason to have a delay in the response. People say, “Didn’t you get my email on your BlackBerry?” While the response to this question may be affirmative, why should someone have to respond immediately to an email just because he or she shelled out the $500 in case a real emergency email comes in? Suddenly people must be on top of their game 24/7. Now, it is not enough to check e-mail every hour; it must be checked every minute.

It is because of the immediacy that society has placed on being able to contact people that there is such a dependence on cell phones. People feel the need to check their phones at all times: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and every minute in between. People feel that if they do not quickly respond to the text, email, or phone call, they will fall behind the rest of the world. Today, productivity and efficiency are king. Cell phones are just the jesters that keep the king amused.

Written by Chad Martin, 2L