Friday, April 18, 2008

The Entman Award

And the Entman (imaginary award of my devising) goes to Saul Levmore, Dean of the University of Chicago Law School, who has announced a block on Internet access in classrooms. From his e-mail to students:

Visitors to classes, as well as many of our students, report that the rate of distracting Internet usage during class is astounding. Remarkably, usage appears to be contagious, if not epidemic. Several observers have reported that one student will visit a gossip site or shop for shoes, and within twenty minutes an entire row is shoe shopping. Half the time a student is called on, the question needs to be repeated.
In law school! (I am low on exclamation points.)

I commend Dean Levmore for his sane and courageous position on Internet access in classrooms, and I hope that college and university administrators elsewhere follow his example.

Related posts
Brava, Professor Entman
Wireless or wireless-less

comments: 2

Lee said...

I think it might worry me even more if it were medical school, which probably tells you what I think of lawyser.

Eustace Bright said...

I'm not in med school, but from hanging out with my wife and her friends, it doesn't seem to happen in medical school. :)