A Place Conducive to the Work:
Endowment $15 Million
Places matter. Environments can either enhance learning or
hinder it.The right-sized setting for legal education tomorrow will be the small classroom and spaces that are open and free flowing, facilitating interaction. As Penn Law Dean of Students Gary Clinton describes it, "It's all about working together, hearing one another's ideas."Creating spaces conducive to that exchange is pivotal to the curriculum.
"What happens in a building happens in particular spaces," says Gary. Now many courses are taught in smaller numbers, requiring seminar-size classrooms where people can see one another and speak to one another in more intimate fashion than the 120-seat lecture halls.
"Today, and when you look to cross-disciplinary work, students are not just being lectured to, but working hand-in-hand and listening to one another.The ideas come from not just the faculty, but from other students - because these are truly going to be their colleagues, their collaborators, their clients, their advisors in the future," says Gary.
Penn Law has invested heavily in facilities in the last decade, but more projects await, including major renovations to the lower floor of Silverman and Pepper Halls and to "The Goat" and adjacent areas. The environment to be created will be open,with crossroad spaces for students, faculty and staff to mingle easily and often.
