Stetson University College of Law
• Stetson has joined law schools across the country in an effort to help displaced law students from the New Orleans area. About six students from both Tulane and Loyola-New Orleans arrived on campus two weeks ago and will take classes in Gulfport until their schools are back up and running. Since the students have already paid tuition at their home schools, Stetson is not charging them for the fall semester. Financial aid organizations and textbook publishers have also agreed to help out.
• Dick Thornburgh, two-time former U.S. attorney general and governor of Pennsylvania, Bill Novelli, CEO of the AARP, Lawrence Davidow, president of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, and other prominent leaders gathered last week to dedicate the country’s first elder-friendly high-tech courtroom on Stetson University College of Law’s Gulfport campus. The barrier-free courtroom, dedicated in honor of Stetson Professor Emeritus William R. Eleazer, is a joint effort of Stetson’s Centers for Excellence in Advocacy and Elder Law. The courtroom is designed as a national model to increase courtroom access to the elderly and disabled. It uses up-to-date technology including flat-panel monitors, hearing amplification devices and a multi-lingual software speech synthesizer that will read aloud words displayed on a computer screen, translate them into multiple languages, and even convert words to Braille displays.
Florida State University
• Five students from Tulane University Law School and three from Loyola University School of Law have accepted the College of Law’s offer of visiting student status for the fall 2005 semester and are already attending classes. FSU announced last week that it would waive out-of-state tuition for those students who evacuated from states devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
• Attention FSU School of Law alumni: the school’s annual Fall Phone-a-thon will be held October 3-21 and that means current law students will be calling you to ask for contributions to the Annual Fund. Last fiscal year, 25 percent of alumni gave to the law school. This year the school hopes to reach a 26 percent alumni giving rate by the end of the fiscal year on June 30.
(On Campus notes are compiled from the schools’ web sites and newsletters. Submissions from alumni are welcome and should be submitted to [email protected] or faxed to 353-2628.)