In the past two years, course offerings in the College of Law have included 12 interdisciplinary courses ranging from Introduction to International Law to Law and Lawyers in Literature, and from Race, Law, and Culture to Risk Technology and the Public. Interdisciplinary courses have a long history at the University. In the early 1920s, dean of the Graduate College Carl Seashore, a professor of psychology, was considered a national pioneer in encouraging the cross-pollination of academic units on campus. While he was president in the 1970s, Willard Boyd, placed a strong emphasis on interdisciplinary teaching as a way of meeting core requirements. The study of law is a particularly appropriate area for various academic subjects to cross paths.
Lawyers represent real people in real professions.
A lawyer must understand the profession in which the client acts, whether it's business, journalism, teaching, medicine, or the creative arts. Students are the obvious beneficiaries when professors from two branches of knowledge come together. I'm interested in First Amendment law and figured that having the exposure to the practical aspects of journalism would be good. It's to enable them to have the right conversation with economists, to know what questions to ask. Hovenkamp, the Ben V. and Dorothy Willie Professor of Law, and Solow have taught the course at least seven times.