The 2017 NASJE Conference was initially scheduled to take place in Charleston, South Carolina on September 10-13, 2017, at the Francis Marion Hotel. However, the onset of a hurricane and major flooding led to the rescheduling of the conference for December 3-6, 2017. This page chronicles the preparation, rescheduling and ultimately successful NASJE conference held in 2017.
As always, the conference will be a showcase of cutting edge judicial education techniques, strategies and emerging issues, as well as bedrock courses for judicial educators, such as Fundamentals of the profession, curriculum development courses and more.
Make your contribution to the profession by presenting or helping to plan the conference!
NASJE Annual Conference Committee co-chairs Dan Rettig and Janice Calvi-Ruimerman.
About Charleston
Charleston, South Carolina is a jewel of the South and an ever popular destination for epicurean adventures, antebellum architecture and an enchanting city that has captured the hearts of painters, poets and playwrights alike for over 300 years. Founded in 1670, Charleston is defined by its colonial seaport heritage and civil war history.
Today, Charleston is known for its blend of Low county cuisine, local seafood and its world acclaimed restaurants. Tour Fort Sumter and the evocative architecture of the city, delicately preserved from its humble past. Spend your evenings falling into the soulful cultural arms of the “Gullah” and soulful culture to be found in the heart of the French Quarter.
Charleston fun facts
- The first game of golf played in the U.S. took place in Charleston.
- The first shot to be fired in the Civil War was fired by Citadel Cadets stationed on Morris Island.
- George Gershwin composed his well-known opera Porgy and Bess while living on Folly Beach, SC. Porgy and Bess are buried in the James Island Presbyterian Church graveyard.
- A sea captain would spear a pineapple to his fence post to let friends know he was home safely and to please visit so he could regale his guests with tales of the high seas. The pineapple today is a symbol of hospitality.
- Charleston’s first woman newspaper editor and publisher was Mrs. Elizabeth Timothy in 1739.
- Sweetgrass basket making has been a part of the Mount Pleasant community for more than 300 years.
- On November 2, 1954, Strom Thurmond became the first U.S. senator elected by write-in vote. Thurmond received 139,106 write-in votes to win his seat. He defeated Democratic nominee Edgar Brown, who received only 80,956 votes.
2017 NASJE Conference Curriculum Planning is Underway
Greetings NASJE members from the annual Conference Committee!
As a reminder, the 2017 NASJE Conference will be held in Charleston, South Carolina on September 10-13, 2017, at the Francis Marion Hotel. The theme for the conference will be Old meets New: incorporating fundamentals, instructional design and adult learning in the 21st century. In collaboration with the Education and Curriculum Committee, five courses are being created to incorporate our NASJE Curriculum Designs in order to specifically address NASJE’s Core Competencies, i.e. Fundamentals, Leadership and Governance, Diversity, Grant Funding and Budgeting and Collaboration with Human Resources.
In addition, the Conference Committee is also collaborating with the Diversity and Fairness committee, which has submitted a number of courses as well as an experiential learning segment that will get us all thinking. Further planning also led this group to engage our members through the use of a course proposal survey, which asked the membership to tell us what you’d like to see in Charleston. We are confident that the curriculum recommended by our NASJE colleagues will enhance this year’s conference, as it is through our peers that we have always learned the most.
The NASJE Annual Conference Committee is made up of enthusiastic and dedicated judicial educators, and is co-chaired by Northeast Regional Director Janice Calvi- Ruimerman, and Southeast Regional Director Dan Rettig. The committee is a true NASJE All-Star team, comprised of Ileen Gerstenberger of Idaho, Caroline Kirkpatrick of Virginia, Marie Anders of Louisiana, Lee Ann Barnhardt of North Dakota, Stephanie Hemmert from the Federal Courts, Kelly Tait from Nevada and Vermont, and John Newell of New Mexico.
Soon after the Burlington Conference, this group began diligently working on creating a showcase of cutting edge judicial education techniques, strategies and emerging issues for this year’s conference. The committee is dedicated to bringing you bedrock courses for judicial educators, as well as delivering an engaging experiential learning session in the heart of Charleston. And of course, the committee has also made it a priority to create engaging networking components to further enhance your conference experience.
Join us for NASJE’s Annual Conference on September 10-13 where “Old meets New: Incorporating Fundamentals, Instructional Design and Adult Learning into the 21st Century,” in historic Charleston, South Carolina. The 2017 Conference Committee has collaborated with the Curriculum Committee and the Diversity, Fairness and Access Committee to create a dynamic agenda that includes sessions to:
- Expand your knowledge of “Kolb and Beyond”
- Explore new research on what really works in teaching and learning
- Open your eyes to ways in which “NASJE Can Work for You”
- “Break Barriers” and discuss difficult topics such as race, color, ethnicity, gender, sex, culture, diversity, bias and discrimination through education
- Provide you with a “Lightning Round Demo of Technology”
- And, help you learn to balance your “Life and Work”
See the 2017 Conference Schedule for a list of sessions and speakers. Please note that there are educational sessions on Sunday for both newer and experienced judicial branch educators. The conference will be held at the The Francis Marion Hotel, in downtown Charleston, a walking city filled with culture, history, shopping, dining and Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church – where we will explore “We Are Charleston: Tragedy and Triumph at Mother Emanuel”.
The special room rate of $171 at the Francis Marion Hotel will be available until August 30th or until the group block is sold out, whichever comes first.
We also have three overflow hotels available.
- Embassy Suites, Historic District – 337 Meeting Street; Charleston, SC 29403
Reservations: 843-723-6900 - Courtyard Marriott, Historic District – 125 Calhoun Street; Charleston, SC 29401
Reservations: 843-805-7900 - Hampton Inn, Historic District – 345 Meeting Street; Charleston, SC 29403
Reservations: 843-723-4000
Join your colleagues from around the country and the world as we share ideas, develop new strategies to engage learners and learn from a different perspective how judicial education can be a collaborative exchange of best practices and solutions.
2017 Annual Conference Update
The 2017 NASJE Annual Conference has been rescheduled for December 3-6, 2017.
We are fortunate to have been offered alternate dates at the same hotel after the September conference dates became unworkable due to Hurricane Irma. We are grateful to the staff at the Francis Marion hotel who worked hard to accommodate us and ensure a positive outcome for all concerned despite the storm.
We hope that everyone can still join us in Charleston in December. Re-registration will be open soon. While all participants will need to re-register, if payment was received for September, the amount paid will be applied directly to the new conference registration. Those who are unable to attend may have their payments transferred to another attendee from their court, or the money will be refunded. We welcome new registrations for those unable to attend in September and who wish to join us in December. We will add a link to hotel room reservations when the hotel block is ready for December reservations.
If you registered and received a bonus annual membership as a new member, you will remain a member for the year even if you are unable to attend in December. Of course, we hope you can join us at the conference on the new dates. We welcome our new members!
Small changes have been made to the conference agenda due to competing commitments on the part of some faculty. The conference committee has done a great job maintaining the integrity of the agenda as much as possible, while adjusting times and in some cases topics when necessary.
Please visit nasje.org frequently to stay abreast of updates as they happen, and see you in Charleston!
Register and Reserve Your Room Now for Rescheduled Conference!
Your NAJSE Conference Committee and Board have been hard at work resolving details for the NASJE Annual Conference now scheduled for December 3-6, 2017.
The good news is that those of you who registered for September and who still plan to attend don’t need to do a thing. Your registration and fees are applied to the new dates.
New attendees must register.
If you responded to the survey sent out to all members and indicated you needed to cancel or transfer your registration, you also don’t need to do anything, your account will be taken care of. If you haven’t yet completed your survey, please do so.
Here is everything you need to know about the rescheduled conference!
Join us for NASJE’s Annual Conference NOW December 3–6, 2017 where “Old meets New: incorporating fundamentals, instructional designs and adult learning into the 21st century,” in historic Charleston, South Carolina.
The 2017 Conference Committee has risen up from Irma and managed to reschedule courses that will:
- Give you the “Fundamentals”
- Expand your knowledge of “Kolb and Beyond”
- Open your eyes to ways in which “NASJE Can Work for You”
- “Break Barriers” and discuss difficult topics such as race, color, ethnicity, gender, sex, culture, diversity, bias and discrimination through education
- Provide you with a “Lightning Round Demo of Technology”
- And, help you learn to balance your “Life and Work”
The 2017 Conference Agenda for course selection will be given in your registration packet at the conference. A list of Course Descriptions is also available. Please note that there are educational sessions on Sunday for both newer and experienced judicial branch educators. The conference will be held at the Francis Marion Hotel, in downtown Charleston, a walking city filled with culture, history, shopping, dining and Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church – where we will explore “We Are Charleston: Tragedy and Triumph at Mother Emanuel”.
- Members who registered for September will choose courses from the course selection form available at the conference / no need to re-register
The special room rate at the Francis Marion Hotel will be available until November 7 or until the group block is sold-out, whichever comes first.
It’s time to join your colleagues from around the country and the world in order to share ideas, develop strategies to engage learners and learn from a different perspective how judicial education can be a collaborative exchange of best practices and solutions.
ELO Preview and Highly Recommended Reading
For those who want to get the most out of the Experiential Learning Opportunity (ELO) at NASJE’s Annual Conference in Charleston, faculty members and authors of the book We Are Charleston: Tragedy and Triumph at Mother Emanuel have highly recommended readings for you to do in advance of the ELO.
The recommended readings are shown below in in relation to the relevant sections of the ELO. The chapters mentioned are from their book which is available through your local bookseller or at Amazon.
We look forward to a great ELO.
OVERVIEW – MOTHER EMANUEL EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING OPPORTUNITY
I. The Charleston Context: Slavery and the Dramatic Interplay of Past and Present
— The African Methodist Episcopal Background
— Mother Emanuel Tour
- Highly Recommended – Read in Advance
- We Are Charleston chapter 4
II. Life Under Segregation
- Highly Recommended – Read in Advance
- We Are Charleston chapters 8, 10
- Ben Tillman Speech: “Their Own Hotheadedness”: Senator Benjamin R.“Pitchfork Ben” Tillman Justifies Violence Against Southern Blacks
III. The Attack on Mother Emanuel: Significance and Ramifications
— The Trial: Jockeying for Position State v Feds
— Shattering the Myth of the Post-Racial Society
— What Does Racial Justice Look Like?
- Highly Recommended – Read in Advance
- We Are Charleston chapters 3, 13 **
- Martin L. King Jr. – “I Have a Dream” Speech, August 28, 1963
- Martin L. King Jr. – “Beyond Vietnam” Speech, April 4, 1967 (esp. pp. 9-11)
IV. Application to Judicial Branch Education: Breakout Groups and Takeaway
“We Are Charleston”
“Racist attitudes rooted in the dark past have sometimes been preserved in the present.” –from the book jacket of We Are Charleston
Almost two years ago, a young white man opened fire on a prayer meeting at the Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Charleston, South Carolina, killing nine members of the congregation. Herb Frazier, Dr. Bernard Edward Powers Jr., and Marjory Wentworth in their new book, We Are Charleston, not only recounts the events of that day but also offers a history lesson that reveals a deeper look at the suffering, triumph, and even the ongoing rage of the people who formed Mother Emanuel AME church.
Their book and conference location are the inspiration for the tentatively entitled “ELO, Charleston, South Carolina and Race: An Experiential Approach,” which revisits the tragedy and explores how race remains a salient issue in society. The session will include a visit to Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, where the murders occurred, on-site discussion of the tragedy and where the country and justice system are with regards to race. Moreover, it will and explore how judicial educators might think about and incorporate recent events into their programs.
Prior to the session, participants will be expected to have read selected chapters from the book, We Are Charleston. However, if you would like to get started with the book, purchase it from your local bookstore or Amazon.
Dr. Tesia Marshik to speak at NASJE 2017 Annual Conference
Dr. Tesia Marshik of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse will teach a session titled Why Don’t We Learn? Overcoming Myths, Biases, and Resistance in Education at NASJE’s Annual Conference in Charleston in September 2017.
The session, which will be presented twice on Monday afternoon, September 11, will build on concepts presented in Dr. Marshik’s 2015 TEDx talk “Learning Styles and the Importance of Critical Self-Reflection” which was presented as part of the 2016 Annual Conference session titled Rethinking Learning Styles.
(In case you missed it, watch the webinar Rethinking Learning Styles, presented in June 2017 for NASJE members.)
Dr. Marshik will begin her session by discussing examples of common myths in education, such as learning styles and “we only use 10% of our brains” and explain why these myths persist. More importantly, she will engage NASJE members in discussing how and why false beliefs and mental limitations make people resistant to change and learning. Finally, she will provide proven educational models designed to help us as educators overcome myths held by our learners with effective instructional techniques. She will also challenge us as learners to engage in practices that help us overcome our own resistance to change.
Dr. Marshik graduated from John Carroll University in Ohio with degrees in Psychology and Philosophy. She earned a Masters of Arts in Education and a PhD in Developmental Psychology and Educational Psychology from the University of Florida in Gainesville. Currently a professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, she teaches a wide range of psychology courses, including Educational Psychology, Lifespan Development and Human Motivation. She has a keen interest in debunking pseudoscience, exploring the roles of cognitive biases and logical fallacies in perpetuating misconceptions, and finding effective methods for fostering conceptual change.
Head and Heart: Working for Justice through Experiential Learning
by Nancy Fahey Smith
Data gets to your head, but stories grip your heart and your emotions. For their experiential learning session at the 2017 NASJE Annual Conference in Charleston, NASJE educators visited the Mother Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church down the street from the conference hotel, where Dylann Roof shot and killed nine members of the congregation on June 17, 2015 during a bible study.
The stories told by the speakers during the session triggered powerful emotional responses in members who attended. The data tells participants that Dylann Roof killed nine parishioners and wounded 3 others in the basement of the AME church in 2015. The facts relate that he was found competent to stand trial and has been convicted of obstructing the practice of religion that resulted in the death of persons. The facts confirm that Dylann Roof has been sentenced to death.
The stories tell us so much more. NASJE members heard from the co-authors of the book We Are Charleston that Dylann Roof was welcomed into the bible study group, even though he was not a parishioner. He listened without speaking to the discussion of scripture before pulling out his gun and murdering group members in cold blood. We heard from a parishioner named Willie Glee that he was supposed to attend that bible study, but a conflict kept him away that day, and he lost friends yet remained alive to tell the story. We also heard from Mr. Glee that Mother Emmanuel AME remains an active church, that its congregation has not faltered in the wake of the murders. When asked if he would visit Dylann Roof in prison as some have done, Mr. Glee categorically said “No.”
Christopher Bryant, law clerk for Judge Richard Gergel who presided over the trial, told a story that particularly tugged at judicial educators’ heads and hearts. Mr. Bryant recounted how, as a highly successful Duke law school student, a justice on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recommended him to clerk for Judge Gergel in Charleston. Mr. Bryant did not want to go. Charleston’s racist history repelled him, and the shooting in the back of African-American Walter Scott by a white police officer, followed quickly by the murders at Mother Emmanuel, only magnified his desire to go elsewhere. Yet he could not turn down the federal clerkship and so he journeyed to Charleston to clerk for Judge Gergel. He stayed during the entire trial, always with the intention of leaving when it was over. Yet witnessing the trial eventually convinced him to stay even though he had an offer from a prestigious Los Angeles law firm that promised big money and influential clients. He stayed because he considered Charleston a place where he could do the most good. He said he remained despite the racism, or perhaps because of it. Today, his clients are real people who need the help and he can provide.
NASJE member Cheryl Howell of North Carolina, spoke about how Bryant’s story about being afraid to live in Charleston moved her, and brought to her mind an African-American friend of hers, the mother of a young black man whom Howell finds delightful. His mother is so afraid for him and what might happen if he is stopped by the police.
Thorson award-winner Michael Roosevelt from California testified to how hearing the stories of real people involved in the tragedy made the learning experience so personal. Mark Goodner of Texas called the session “great!” because of the power of listening to the people who live in Charleston. The voices and perspectives brought by the storytellers effectively involved him in the session on an emotional level. Members Kim Carson of Iowa and Rosemary Garland-Scott of New York appreciated the narrative as told by African-Americans from their perspective, as contrasted to the white narrative of the previous day’s walking tour of the city. The overall reaction of NASJE members was “Wow! What a story!”
An educator from North Carolina experienced perhaps the most visceral reaction of all. Listening to the history of Charleston at the church, and seeing an ancestor of hers portrayed from a not-so-flattering point of view reminded her that her family’s good fortune was built on the backs of slaves in North and South Carolina. While she has grappled with this fact for years, the story heard in that Charleston church cemented her view that her family must not only confront its history, but also work for justice in the present.
Not everything can be taught or learned through an experiential learning session, but when appropriate, experiential learning offers an opportunity not to be missed. Involving both the head and the heart promotes long-lasting learning, something NASJE members work for every day.
Watch Marjory Wentworth recite her poem “Holy City”, which is dedicated to the victims of the Mother Emmanuel AME murders, below. Wentworth is the co-author of We Are Charleston and poet laureate of South Carolina.
Facilitating 101 by Stephanie Hemmert: Practice Makes Perfect
by Rob Godfrey, Utah Administrative Office of the Courts
The final morning of the NASJE conference in Charleston, South Carolina began with the choice of one of three different breakout sessions. I chose to attend Facilitating 101 presented by Stephanie Hemmert of the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, DC. She began the session by drawing input from many in the audience, who shared various reasons why they wanted to facilitate classes, discussions and meetings. She then went on to explain that our purpose for the class was to practice our facilitating skills with the whole group. I chose to take a turn despite my fear of anything related to public speaking and found I appreciated the opportunity to put the lesson into real practice.
With 20 or so attendees we were given 3 minutes to choose a topic and facilitate a discussion. After session members took their turns, the rest of the class filled in comment cards answering several questions to evaluate the facilitation skills of each volunteer participant. Each volunteer received the peer evaluations for their personal use, a nice takeaway from the session. In between each person’s performance, Stephanie added ideas about how to steer groups toward desired outcomes. For example:
- Include all members of the group
- Lay the groundwork – define learning objectives
- Acknowledge participants’ input and redirect when necessary
- Be a conductor
Stephanie provided other helpful hints, such as when you have a group that is shy to participate, ask “Who has the first question?” rather than just asking if there are any questions. Personalizing it can entice someone who may be on the verge of asking but might hesitate without some encouragement.
Participants discussed at length what to do with troublesome participants – those who try to dominate a room or display their intellectual prowess. Helpful hints included strategies such as physically remaining near the offending party so that his or her attention must stay with the facilitator. Another method is to ask for input from others, to steer the conversation gently away from the noise-making person.
I found the class to be very stimulating and even a little scary, since I don’t get opportunities to facilitate very often in my job. Like anything related to public speaking, it helps to practice as often as possible. The feedback I received from fellow learners was extremely helpful as well and one thing I will take away from this and apply to many other phases of my job and life: don’t forget to smile.
Conference Spotlight: The Alchemy of “Moonlight”
By Kelly Tait
In a kind of cinematic alchemy, Moonlight makes viewers’ hearts beat right along with the protagonist’s in a world that is both intrinsically American and foreign to many. The movie drops us deeply into three stages of Chiron’s life—as a ten year old trying to outrun bullies in his impoverished Miami neighborhood, as an adolescent quivering at the possibility of a first kiss, and as a hyper-muscled, achingly lonely adult.
The person who worked this movie magic, screenwriter/director Barry Jenkins, lived in the neighborhood portrayed in the film, as did Tarell Alvin McCraney, writer of the original source material, an unproduced play called “In Moonlight, Black Boys Look Blue.” Their real-world experiences give veracity to the setting and the story.
Jenkins’ phenomenal ability to portray emotion through imagery and sound plus strong acting performances all around have created an intensely personal onscreen experience that illuminates universal themes. Along with raising issues such as ethnicity, socio-economics, sexual identity, and substance abuse, the movie perhaps most affectingly shows the impact of adults in children’s lives.
Moonlight has been called a master class in filmmaking. It won three 2017 Academy Awards—Best Picture, Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay), and Best Supporting Actor—and was nominated for five more. As A. O. Scott said in his review of the film in the New York Times (10/20/16) “‘Moonlight’ is both a disarmingly, at times almost unbearably personal film and an urgent social document, a hard look at American reality and a poem written in light, music and vivid human faces.”
Join us at NASJE’s Annual Conference in Charleston, South Carolina, September 10-13, for a lively look at how judicial branch educators can use this gritty, beautiful movie to open the door to discussions of identity, social issues, and the role of the justice system.
Watch the trailer below.