Last summer, University Week wrote to faculty and staff who have worked here at least 35 years and asked for their reminiscences. Today’s trip down memory lane comes from Roland Hjorth, currently dean emeritus and Garvey Schubert & Barer Professor at the UW law school.
“I came to the Law School in 1964. The type of teaching to which I had been exposed was the sort typified by Professor Kingsfield in The Paper Chase. I did not have it in me to be that mean, but I did tell my students that while they did not have to come to class, if they did so they should come prepared to discuss the assigned material. If I called on a student who told me he was unprepared (there were few women students in those years), the student was invited to leave the class. I never challenged a student who told me he was prepared, but there were a few whose sense of honor required them to announce that fact to me and the entire class. Those invited to leave formed a kind of select group that I always admired. One of those invited to leave later received an ‘A’ in the class and is now a member of the Board of Regents.”
Hjorth describes having read a book by Kenneth Galbraith in which the author discussed positive and negative motivation. “He wrote that if you want to get a ditch dug and you put a pistol to the heads of the workmen, you would eventually get the ditch dug. But if you wanted a ditch of the highest quality dug in record time you could only do that by motivating the workers positively.
“I decided then and there that I would eliminate my prior practice and do my best to motivate the students in a positive way. In any event, law schools around the nation have become kinder and gentler places.”