Joint degree students want change

by Naureen Mohammad, 2J
Law Weekly
April 7, 2009

Thanks to an enterprising group of students and a responsive administration, Georgetown Law’s joint degree students have seen much positive change over the past year. A few short months ago there were numerous complaints about what Julia Follick, a second-year J.D./Masters of Science in Foreign Service (MSFS) candidate, called “little infrastructure or support for joint degree students.” Now, however, they have a registered student organization on the law campus and their own delegate in the Student Bar Association (SBA).

The campaign started last semester when an SBA delegate proposed a resolution to create a different designation for joint degrees--1J, 2J, 3J, etc. Although SBA resolutions are not binding on the administration, after that resolution passed through the House unanimously the Association made a concerted effort to use the J designation in its surveys and official communications to the student body.

Later, Marc Sorel and Julia Follick, 2Js, worked with the SBA Executive Board to amend the SBA Constitution to create a joint degree delegate position. While the SBA has representatives for LLMs and evening division students, until 2009 the 80 joint degree students voted with the rest of the day division students, and their needs went largely overlooked. However, on March 17, Bryan Buroughs, 2J, joined the 2009-10 House as the first joint degree delegate.

Buroughs will have a great deal of work to do; his constituency has a lot of issues unique to the Law Center community. For example, joint degrees have to get separate transcripts from both campuses for job interviews. Because many of them do not know they will need transcripts until Early Interview Week Orientation and the first set of interviews begin the following Monday, they do not have enough time to travel to main campus and back, and are forced to submit unofficial transcripts. Moreover, the shuttle between campuses runs only once per hour, and skips several hours during the day so that students who have classes on both campuses often have to allocate two hours for a commute that actually only takes 15 to 30 minutes.

The joint degree student organization is looking at these administrative problems as well as a possible expansion of summer work opportunities for rising 2Js, who are often looking for ways to market their second degree with firms who may not understand how the dual degree program works. As Sorel pointed out, “In a complex, globalized world where systemic and systematic interdisciplinary thought is essential, a joint degree adds substantive areas of expertise that will complement a student's law degree.”

Another area that joint degrees are hoping to expand is the development of connections between current students and those who are interested in the joint degree as well as alumni of the program. On March 27, they held the first annual distinguished practitioner address, with guest speaker Dan Sullivan, Assistant Secretary of State for Economic, Energy, and Business Affairs. Sullivan graduated with MSFS and law degrees in 1993.

These events were made possible, according to Follick, because of generous funding from both the law school and the MSFS program. But according to Sorel, their contributions are in their own best interest because they “help sculpt the minds of tomorrow’s leaders in law, policy, politics, business, diplomacy, health, science, and other disciplines.”

Thus far, joint degree students have found the Law Center administration remarkably responsive to their concerns. While they have also found some success working with specific graduate departments, individual students have run into difficulties dealing with the graduate school. They complain that despite the larger number of joint degrees on main campus--there are also many students pursuing joint degrees with the medical school--the bureaucracy seems to not know how to deal with them.

Joint degree candidates cite examples of being unable to register for classes through Student Access, unsuccessfully attempting to change their expected graduation date, and having their Student Identification cards deactivated if they choose not to take graduate courses for one semester, which is problematic not only because they cannot use the card on the Law campus, but also because it is often required to access the buildings and offices on main campus. Many of the exasperated joint degree students hope that their new student organization and SBA delegate will be able to positively affect their standing with the graduate department the way that they have at the Law Center.