Well, the annual conference of the National Association of State Judicial Educators is upon us. To those of you who will be in Chicago next week for the conference, I want to say that I look forward to seeing you there. Read more
I’ve always been amazed at how much NASJE as a small professional organization accomplishes. However, until I joined the Board, much of the work and contributions were invisible and I didn’t realize what it takes to sustain NASJE and keep it flourishing into the future. My hope is that through a periodic update from the President, the work of the Board and efforts of NASJE members will be more visible. This update provides only a sample of the tremendous contributions over the past few months.
Over the past several months, the NASJE Board has been moving toward starting a strategic planning process. In February at the Mid-Year Meeting, the Board spent a day with Karen Thorson doing some exercises to start assessing where NASJE is as an organization, where we might want to go in terms of a strategic direction, and possibilities for how to get there.
Court employees must provide good customer service, especially in light of the link between funding and how citizens feel about their courts. Good customer service translates into better overall feelings about the courts, and better overall feelings can translate into adequate funding.
Chad Schmucker, the State Court Administrator of Michigan, has been chosen to be the eighth president of the National Judicial College. He follows in the footsteps of V. Robert Payant who served as the sixth president of the NJC from 1990-1998 and was also was the State Court Administrator in Michigan.
Dr. Pat Murrell has retired after setting a continuing standard of excellence in judicial branch education.
NASJE was well-represented at the 6th International Organization for Judicial Training Conference held in Washington, D.C., in November.
This is the first in what the NASJE Curriculum Committee hopes will be a series of articles about the curriculum, its origin, its vision, its components, and how to use it.
Law Day was started in 1958 by President Eisenhower to celebrate the rule of law and to educate citizens on how law and legal processes support American freedoms, with an emphasis on the role of courts in our democracy.
Juvenile Drug Court (JDC) professionals are innovative, dedicated professionals who often get promoted, are appointed to work in other areas of the court, or find new career paths. For this reason there is a substantial amount of turnover among JDC team members.
Forming, storming, norming, and performing, comprise an influential framework for understanding the life cycle of teams. Judicial branch educators can use this framework to better understand their own teams, as well as to educate judges and court managers about the essential practice of building teams.
The impact of turnover within a judicial education organization may be amplified by the small size of a judicial education staff, or the scarcity of qualified judicial educators.
According to The Nation’s Report Card, the official site for results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, high school seniors are falling behind in their understanding of government and civics, scoring less than 50% on national tests. And unless you pursue a career in law, government, or politics, it doesn’t get any better after high school.
Law and literature courses are common offerings in law schools across the country and are a regular feature in many judge trainings. In these instances, literature is used as a way of understanding the complex issues that are faced in the justice system. This serves a purpose, but there is also benefit in extending the study of literature to judicial staff beyond the bench.
Please join us in welcoming new NASJE members and acknowledging transitions of current members.
Dr. Conner has been a friend and mentor to many NASJE members. For those who do not know her, she serves as the director of the Judicial Administration Program at the Michigan State University School of Criminal Justice.
Since 2003, at the urging of Justice Mark Gibbons, the Nevada Supreme Court has been hearing cases at high schools throughout the state. Panels, usually made up of three of the seven Justices, have traveled to a number of rural areas, conducting hearings that usually have a connection to that specific region, in an effort to allow the general population and students to see how the court functions.
