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The Future of JERITT: Living the Change
JERITT was begun by dedicated members of our profession and will continue because of that same dedication. Michigan State University (MSU) and the National Association of State Judicial Educators (NASJE) along with the State Justice Institute (SJI) have for nearly seventeen years shared the same vision of advancing the administration of justice through excellent, comprehensive, and timely education and training of judges and court personnel designed to enhance skills, challenge beliefs and past practices, introduce new concepts and knowledge, revisit the foundations of the rule of law, and reflect on guiding principles that continue to give meaning to our work. The vision has not changed, but how we actively pursue it will.
It was inevitable that one day SJI would withdraw funding from JERITT. JERITT was notified in 2002 that, as a continuation grant, the last possible year it would receive funding from SJI under their revised guidelines would be 2007. MSU, with SJI’s good wishes, was preparing for the funding transition by engaging in discussions with NASJE and other potential partners. While JERITT was preparing for a discontinuation of SJI funding beginning in 2008, the fact that SJI funding may end before that does not change what was going to be a certainty beginning in 2008.
The current situation with JERITT is this: JERITT continues to operate all core functions under a no-cost extension from SJI through March 31, 2006 utilizing $34,080.00 in unspent funds created primarily by a position vacancy and greater costs that MSU assumed related to the pervasive computer hacker invasion JERITT experienced early in 2005. The SJI Board will consider JERITT’s application at its meeting on March 9-12. However, JERITT has been notified that the SJI Board will not entertain the part of the application that is directed at the electronic infrastructure modernization that costs $343,000.00. The NASJE Board remains committed to working with MSU, JERITT, and SJI to build a coalition of partners that share our same interest and values and who can also share the financial costs associated with operating JERITT.
MSU has taken steps over the last several years to build institutional capacity for JERITT. One such move was the development of the Judicial Administration Program, of which NASJE is a national advisory committee member. MSU has also increasingly assumed more costs for the operation of JERITT, which not only provides services to judicial branch education, but also to SJI through the operations of its grants and products databases and hot products index. The most recent action was when the MSU Board of Trustees in December, 2005 named John Hudzik, JERITT Project Director Emeritus, the Vice President of Global Engagement and Strategic Projects for MSU. John negotiated that a portion of his time be devoted to strengthening JERITT and the Judicial Administration Program at MSU as part of the institution’s longer range strategic plan, and to help plan the transition of JERITT from SJI funding during 2006 and 2007.
I am happy to announce that John will become the chair of the JERITT Management Panel and that his first priority is securing the future of JERITT. He will be aided in this endeavor by Patti Tobias, Liz Strong, John Meeks, and Kay Palmer.
As a person who has always welcomed change and encouraged you to do the same, I will not reverse course in the face of this challenge to JERITT’s future viability. Rather, just as JERITT has increased our collective knowledge and improved our individual practice by giving us a vehicle through which we can share what we know and do, it can and will continue to do the same through this transition. We will learn together about the effects of change and the inevitable chaos and promise of rebirth that it brings. JERITT will become our shared laboratory, the teachings from which we can apply in our personal and professional lives.
Change is change and nothing more. It provides an opportunity to reinvent and recommit. It does, however, come with loss as JERITT has recently experienced. The pain of the losses have been softened by the rapid show of support from the NASJE Board, which invigorated our membership and the rest of the court community to show its support for a project that has served NASJE, SJI, and the courts honorably and steadfastly. MSU’s motto is “Advancing Knowledge and Transforming Lives.” With your support and enthusiasm, JERITT intends on living the MSU motto for many years to come.
Look for JERITT updates in future NASJE News editions and on the NASJE
list server. Read the NASJE JERITT
Resolution (PDF:169k).
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