Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
“I write to announce and explain a new Law School policy. It is presently experimental, and will make its way into our Handbook after some experience and opportunity for feedback. I am tempted to begin with news aimed at those of you who miss the Law School while on Spring Break. We have, after all, hired some terrific new faculty, and the crews are busy in our front yard. But I do not wish to avoid my subject, which is Internet usage in our classrooms.
“A great many conversations and classroom visits have generated the perception, and I think reality, that we have a growing problem in the form of the distractions presented by Internet surfing in the classroom. You know better than I that for many students class has come to consist of some listening but also plenty of e-mailing, shopping, news browsing, and gossip-site visiting. Many students say that the visual images on classmates’ screens are diverting, and they too eventually go off track and check e-mail, sometimes to return to the class discussion and sometimes barely so. Our faculty (and I, as well as many of your classmates with whom I have spoken) believe strongly that we need to do everything we can to make Chicago’s classroom experiences all they can be. I therefore ask, respectfully but emphatically, that you use computers in class only for class-related purposes. Games and Internet usage in class should be like cell-phone usage or the ostentatious reading of newspapers – inappropriate, a breach of etiquette, and an insult to teacher, classmate, and self.
