Schedule - National Conference on Law and Higher Education

Thursday, Feb. 14 - Friday, Feb. 15, 2013

10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

BOOT CAMP
Boot Camp on the Fundamentals of Higher Education Law and Policy

Back by popular demand—and expanded to two days—this boot camp style workshop focuses on the fundamentals of higher education law and policy. This session is not about "hot" topics or recent trends.  This workshop will feature lectures, drills, problem analysis, and question and answer designed to improve your understanding of basic principles of higher education law and policy.

Come ready to learn about:

• The law of campus safety
• Core civil rights of students and employees
• Regulatory law and policy
• Governance in higher education
• Fundamentals of employment law
• How to work with lawyers, the legal system and legal materials
• and more…

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Saturday, Feb. 16, 2013

9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Turning the Corner In the War on Binge Drinking and Drugs on Campus with Science, Enforcement Efforts and Legal Compliance

The Department of Education may soon begin to take greater regulatory initiatives under the Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities Act. Are you in compliance? Is your biennial review process in keeping with leading practices in the field? Have you completed and filed a biennial report with the Department of Education?

Whether you have engaged in sophisticated prevention efforts or are just getting started, it is now time to improve your SDFSCA compliance efforts to reduce the risks created by high-risk alcohol and drug use. This workshop will help guide you to a greater understanding of current and potential SDFSCA compliance and provide detailed, complete guidance on cutting-edge compliance techniques -- including biennial reporting.

• Eric Davidson
• Mary Hill
• Daniel Reilly
• Thomas Workman

9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Crash Course on Critical Higher Education Law Compliance Issues for Law Schools: A Workshop for Vice, Associate, and Assistant Deans in Law Schools

This workshop—led by highly experienced law school leaders–will cover the basic law and policy challenges that face law school vice, associate and assistant deans on a daily basis. Topics will include compliance issues with Title IX, EDGAR Part 86, Clery Act and other rapidly expanding regulatory areas.  However, this workshop is more than a higher education regulatory compliance primer — it is designed to help identify the broader law and policy questions facing law school administrators and provide invaluable resources to help find the answers needed on a daily basis.  Deliverables will include substantial outlines (on topics such as bar certification) and a bibliography of books and articles that law school administrators will refer to again and again.

• Judith Areen
• Catherine Lanctot
• Oren Griffin
• Richard Gershon

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Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013

8:45 a.m.

Orientation for First Time Attendees

If this is your first time attending Stetson's National Conference on Law and Higher Education, we encourage you to attend a short orientation session. An experienced conference presenter will provide tips about how to get the most from the conference.

• Charles Carletta

9:00 – 10:30 a.m.

Employment Law Update Part I

This two-part session has been framed to present an update on employment law issues facing employers, discuss how they uniquely impact higher education, and provide practical guidance for the audience members to take back to their campuses.  Among the topics we will discuss are the EEOC's guidance on employee background checks; the multiple intersections emerging around  employees' use of expanding technologies, privacy interests, and social media overlays; managing disability issues and reasonable accommodation requests; and the requirements and pitfalls of conducting investigations of internal discrimination and retaliation complaints. We will discuss NLRB updates, including the developments around the question of whether graduate teaching assistants will be considered employees under the NLRB and the potential revisiting of the Yeshiva doctrine and what that could mean for faculty members' rights to unionize, and the impact of other NLRB developments facing both unionized and non-unionized workplaces. 

• Shelley Carthen-Watson
• Miriam McKendall
• Davis O'Guinn

New Directions in Governance and Business Operations

This session will discuss promising practices and developments in campus business operations and governance. In particular, there will be discussion about governance issues raised in light of the Penn State scandal.

• Sarah bray
• Holly Mckiernan
• Ada Meloy

Nurturing Excellence in Our Most Gifted Students: Helping Students Thrive in College

Significant time and resources are often spent ensuring minimum acceptable levels of student competency. But what about our best and brightest students? This session will explore some of the unique problems and challenges for gifted student populations and will suggest potential ways to help these students to continue to excel and thrive.

• Fred Bonner
• Jim Hundrieser
• Jason Palmer

Sink or Swim - Is Your College at Risk of Undervaluing Risk Management?

ERM. Enterprise risk management is a core fiduciary responsibility of the modern university— and the best approach to manage the ever-rising costs of litigation. Boards of Trustees now understand the need to utilize industry best practices regarding system risk management to protect their institutions. This session will present information about implementation of enterprise risk management concepts at colleges and universities, and discuss ways to make campuses safer. Case studies on lessons learned, and best practices in risk management to protect the reputation of institutions, will be featured.

• Jean Demchak
• Rich Legon

10:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.

Employment Law Update Part II

See Part I

• Shelley Carthen-Watson
• Jean Demchak
• Miriam McKendall
• Davis O'Guinn

Combatting White Collar Crime in Higher Education: Internal Investigations and Implications of the Freeh Report

White collar crime has become a major challenge for institutions of higher learning. This session will examine internal investigation procedures (including issues related to the Freeh Report at Penn State), will suggest methods of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of such investigative procedures, and discuss methods to combat white-collar crime on campus.

• Ellen Podgor
• Gina Smith

The Great Regulatory Compliance Challenge: Promising Practices for Coordinating Legal Compliance Efforts on Campus

Achieving and maintaining regulatory compliance is challenging, and will continue to become more challenging and complex for the foreseeable future. Compliance efforts require coordination. This session will focus on promising practices to ensure better coordination of compliance efforts within the institution. This session is for large complex organizations and small institutions that struggle with compliance issues.

• Jonathan Alger
• David Armstrong
• Karen Pennington

1:30 - 4:30 p.m.

Is this the End of Race Conscious Admissions? Implications of Fisher v. University of Texas.

The US Supreme Court has heard oral arguments in Fisher. We may have a decision at any time. The plenary features President Jon Alger, JMU, who played a key role in the University of Michigan efforts in Grutter v Bollinger and Gratz v Bollinger as Assistant General Counsel for the University of Michigan, Ada Meloy, General Counsel for the American Council on Education, Richard Kahlenberg, Senior Fellow at the Century Foundation, (Meloy and Kahlenburg recently wrote featured pieces on Fisher in the Chronicle of Higher Education (http://chronicle.com/article/U-of-Texas-Stands-on-Firm/134810/ and http://chronicle.com/article/A-New-Kind-of-Affirmative/134840/), and Professors Fred Bonner and Michele Alexandre, who have written extensively on issues of race, gender and multiculturalism. Don't miss this exciting, and timely session.

• Michele Alexandre
• Jonathan Alger
• Fred Bonner
• Richard Kahlenberg
• Ada Meloy

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Monday, Feb. 18, 2013

8:30 – 10:00 a.m.

FERPA Update

In this session, an experienced university general counsel will lead a discussion about FERPA basics and updates. This session, designed for lawyers and non-lawyers has been a perennial favorite at our conference.

• Steve McDonald

Building and Sustaining Strong, Effective Campus / Community Coalitions

Colleges and universities are communities unto themselves, with their own cultures, goals, and missions. However, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that colleges and universities are also part of the communities in which they are physically located. Students often live and work off campus. Policies made by the local community often impact students and the institution (and vice versa). This session will look at some of the tensions and opportunities among campuses and their communities and will discuss ways to build effective campus community coalitions.

• Johnathan Alger
• David Armstrong
• Jim Hundrieser

Legal Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics and Recreation

This session will focus on select law and policy issues in intercollegiate athletics and recreation. The following topics will be addressed through an interactive discussion and review of real world scenarios: social media and speech; head trauma and institutional liability; sexual harassment and sexual violence (including sexual predation and Title IX); hazing; scope of authority of the NCAA and other associations; and other issues as time permits.

• George McClellan

Higher Education Law and Policy Scholarship Session for Current and Aspiring Scholars

The National Conference is a meeting place for scholars and inspires attendees and presenters alike to engage in critical law and policy scholarship. This session will assemble a panel of aspiring and accomplished scholars for an engaging roundtable exchange about writing, research, and scholarship regarding higher education law and policy. In particular, this session will feature Professors William Kaplin and Barbara Lee's forthcoming new edition of "The Law of Higher Education." The panel of scholars will also share their views on what new books and articles we should be reading, where the gaps are in current research, how the technological revolution will continue to impact scholarship and scholarly materials, how teachers of higher education law and policy should approach the challenges of preparing students for the higher education workforce and many other issues.

• Michele Alexandre
• Judith Areen
• Joy Blanchard
• Oren Griffin
• William Kaplin
• Jason Palmer

10:30 a.m. – noon

FERPA Update

See Part I

Employment Law Update Part III: The Multicultural Faculty of Today and Tomorrow

As student populations become more diverse and multicultural, so too does the faculty. While this offers opportunities for greater diversity of perspectives and experience, differences can also present challenges of miscommunication, misunderstanding, and potential conflict. This session will look at the increasing diversity of faculty and explore ways to more fully benefit from multicultural faculty, while, at the same time, avoiding some of the pitfalls that can accompany such differences

• Michele Alexandre
• Fred Bonner

Breakthroughs in the Science of Learner Differences: The End of the Abled/Disabled Dichotomy in Higher Education?

Consider just this one fact -- one out of eighty-eight US children born today are born within the autism spectrum. Is it time to reconsider what is a disability?  Is it  also time to reconsider what is an accommodation versus what is a standard of practice to reach our diverse learner populations?  This session will explore the latest neuro-diversity research and consider where the law and the realities of cognitive disabilities may no longer align within a educational context.  In addition, this session will provide insights to better prepare your campus to meet the needs of our increasingly diverse learner populations. Don't miss this cutting edge learning science presentation.

• Marsha Glines
• Jim Hundrieser
• Peter Lake

Veterans Issues in Higher Education: From Compliance to Support -- Part I

As more veterans return from the battlefields and enter institutions of higher education many colleges are going beyond mere compliance with laws and regulations concerning student veterans and service members. Instead, they are seeking ways to more actively offer support to this unique student population. This session will look at what some institutions offer to assist their veteran students and explore some best practices that other institutions, including yours, can use to better assist our veterans.

• Michael Allen
• David DiRamio
• Kathryn Jarvis
• Emily Richardson

1:30 – 3:00 p.m.

Disability Law Issues

Forty years after Section 504 was passed, what are today's hot legal issues?  What are likely areas of litigation?  What are courts and OCR likely to do?  How can higher education administrators, legal counsel involved in these issues, and disability service providers proactively ensure that Section 504 and other disability law requirements are followed with a minimum of litigation and confrontation especially with shrinking resources and growing numbers of students, staff, and faculty members with disabilities? This session will discuss these important topics and much more.

• Laura Rothstein

Academic Freedom Under Attack: Balancing Public Interest with Academic Autonomy

This session will provide a general overview of what is, and is not academic freedom, and will discuss what the future may hold for academic freedom. Specifically, the panel will look at transitions (leadership and focus) within AAUP, examine the extent to which contract professors are protected by academic freedom, and discuss the cynicism many general counsels have toward academic freedom in practice.

• Ann Franke
• Ada Meloy
• Robert Smith

Technology Law Issues

How much interdiction is appropriate in social media? Who owns (or should own) the rights to works published by faculty? What direction is online learning and access heading? This session will discuss these technology and law issues and more.

• Justin Bathon
• Thomas Workman

Veteran Issues in Higher Education: From Compliance to Support -- Part II

See Part I

3:15 - 4:45 p.m.

Law and Policy Issues in Managing College Investments

This session will discuss how administrators and internal counsel for colleges or universities fulfill their obligations in connection with the endowment's investments in alternative investments – hedge funds, private equity funds, real estate, etc. It will begin with a brief overview of legal standards involved, include a discussion of internal vs. external advisors, fund partnership agreements, sample legal/tax/economic issues that should be reviewed and conclude with practical approaches to handling this process.

• Daniel Blickman
• Charles Carletta

Revolution in Accreditation? The Shifting Role of Accrediting Bodies and the Reauthorization of Higher Education Act

This session focuses on federal law implications of higher education with a focus on the HEA reauthorization and the need to take into account accreditation, quality, credits, and federal student loans. The session will also discuss the key linkage with the for-profit sector and the need to have a federal mandate that effectively provides for an outcomes/results oriented policy that applies to all higher education providers.

• Tim Birtwistle
• Holly McKiernan

IP Issues in Higher Education

Don't know IP from IT?  Use copyright interchangeably with trademark?  Wonder what all the fuss is about regarding university patents and patent reform?  If any of these questions apply to you, then come to this session on IP 101!  Duquesne University Law Professor and higher education scholar Jacob H. Rooksby will cover the basics of the three main intellectual property regimes (copyright, trademark, and patent), with particular emphasis on the relevance of these regimes for the higher education administrator in the electronic age.  Additional discussion will include "hot topics" at the intersection of IP and higher education, including copyright fair use & digitization issues, trademark rights accretion and protection, and university involvement in patenting and patent litigation.

• Joy Blanchard
• Jacob Rooksby

5:00 - 6:30 p.m.

Looking into the Crystal Ball 2013 - Higher Education Futurists Give a Glimpse of the Law and Policy Challenges of Tomorrow

2012 was an eventful year in higher education, but the world did not come to an end. What will 2013 bring? More than ever, it is imperative to project forward to try to anticipate the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. Last year's "Crystal Ball" session was wildly popular, and uncannily accurate in presaging the future (of course, our panel consists of international higher education experts who help to shape that future). Come to this year's panel featuring an all-star lineup of international experts to remind yourself that this is the beginning of a new world in higher education. Lets look into that crystal ball once again….

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Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013

9:15 - 10:45 a.m.

College Safety in the 21st Century - Sustainable, Articulable and Practical College Safety Standards for the Modern University Part I

Modern colleges increasingly struggle with safety metrics. What standards govern college safety? How are these standards developed and articulated? Who creates and articulates theses standards, and to what extent are they realistic, appropriate, scientifically supportable and efficient? What does the future of college safety look like from a law and policy perspective?

• S. Daniel Carter
• Peter Lake

Greek Law and Policy Issues Part I: "Fraternal Law" Live

For those of you familiar with the publication "Fraternal Law," this session will be "Fraternal Law" Live. This session will feature a panel of experts who will discuss the relationship between fraternal organizations and institutions of higher education, membership procedures, disciplinary issues and other important topics

• Mark Bauer
• Tim Burke
• James Lincoln
• Beth Stathos

"Breach of Contract!" - The Rise of Contract Law in Higher Education

Courts often say that our relationship with students is contractual. What do they mean by this?  What is the contract, and how is it interpreted?  How has recent litigation shaped the contract paradigm in higher education? Administrators and attorneys must also review and approve contracts. How should such contracts be drafted and negotiated? Contract law is a bigger and bigger feature of higher education law today …

• Charles Carletta
• Beverly Ledbetter
• Steve McDonald

11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

College Safety in the 21st Century - Sustainable, Articulable and Practical College Safety Standards for the Modern University Part II

See Part I

Greek Law and Policy Issues Part II: The Scourge of Hazing - Protecting Our RSO's, Students, and Institutions from Risk and Liability

Hazing continues to be an issue for colleges and universities. High profile incidents such as the recent hazing death at FAMU continue to keep public policy makers focused on the challenges of hazing. This session will look at what hazing is, what rules surround hazing and try to determine the difference between bullying and hazing. The panelists will discuss issues of civility on campus, history of hazing within organizations and the continuum of bullying from home, schools and into the larger community.

• Mark Bauer
• Tim Burke
• James Lincoln
• Beth Stathos

Four Weddings and a Funeral: Opportunities, Challenges and Risks for Transnational Education

This program will provide participants with a highlight of key legal and practical considerations for the development and management of international collaborations, using both UK and US examples. The panel will elaborate on issues related to the selection of a collaboration partner, the risks and opportunities of collaboration and exit issues, inter alia.  Using a review of selected cases, and their actual experiences, the presenters will discuss some of the practical issues that can arise for international collaborations, including how these issues can be managed. Combining legal and practical examples this session will be of interest for lawyers and administrators, providing a useful insight into the risks and opportunities of transnational education.

• John Hall
• Kathleen Kwan
• Joseph Morrissey

1:30 - 4:30 p.m.

Title IX Compliance Workshop - Preferred Practices in Light of the Recent Yale and Xavier Letters

Following the April 4, 2011 "Dear Colleague" letter from the Department of Education, and the increased enforcement and investigation efforts that accompanied it, many institutions struggled to come into compliance. However, through collaboration with the Department and tireless efforts to create safer campuses, examples of success and promising practices have emerged. This workshop will explore some of those examples, particularly the recently concluded Yale investigation, to help guide you and your campus to successful compliance. Come explore what the spirit of voluntary compliance really means for higher education today.

• David Armstrong
• John DiPaolo
• Brian Emerson
• Gina Smith

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Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013

9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Campus Safety and Support Teams: Convergence of Promising Practices and the New HEMHA Guide

At institutions of higher education it has become standard practice to develop campus teams to respond to potential threats to campus safety, including students of concern. However, many institutions struggle to develop a shared understanding of how these teams actually function. This workshop, led by a panel of nationally known experts, will discuss promising practices for creating, training, and assessing the use of campus teams and will examine a new document created by HEMHA, a collaborative organization comprised of various organizations interested in higher education mental health, that offers valuable guidance.

• Joy Blanchard
• Gene Deisinger
• Greg Eells
• Victor Schwartz