Day 271: A Community of Scholars

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

Today, I sat in the first-floor lounge with several other members of the law faculty to hear one of our colleagues, Elaine Waterhouse Wilson, discuss a work in progress that she’ll present at a conference this summer. She’s proposing several legal reforms to reinvigorate the potential of cooperatives, a business entity that were intended to and still could be used to promote the cooperative members’ vision of social welfare for the group.

The discussion brought back so much that I’d forgotten about the law of agricultural cooperatives, and it resonated with my recent research about late-nineteenth century agricultural reform movements (the Grange). Her proposal represents the best of legal scholarship: practical legal reforms that could fuel transformative social movements. I felt like a kid on a playground.

A Community of Scholars: Ideal and Reality

When I first decided to interview for a law teaching job, I imagined inhabiting a community of scholars. Most people, even most law students, don’t realize that a law professor’s job description typically requires 30-40% of the job to consist of research, writing, publishing, and disseminating knowledge. By constantly engaging in discovery, we should bring greater insight to our teaching and greater service to our communities.

I love research, writing, and engaging with other scholars. But the friendly, open-door community that I loved about WVU Law didn’t always facilitate the solitary writing process. I struggled even to finish my own work and found too little time to engage with others about our respective projects.

COVID-19, for better or worse

Then COVID-19 changed the world. For a year, we all stayed home. We Zoomed in to classes for a semester, meetings for much longer. Those of us without childcare or elder care responsibilities at home had more time to write (if we could access the research resources we needed). Opportunities to share were limited.

Now, we live in the post-COVID New Normal. Many of my colleagues adjusted to working from home and mostly still do. I, too, work from home far more than I ever did before, grateful for the quiet hours now that I’m deeply engrossed in a book project. Many students, too, work from home; we typically meet by appointment or during designated office hours.

COVID shifted all of us to a culture more conducive to research and writing. I’m grateful for that. And today I remembered what a community of scholars can be.