Dear Candidates:

The Dean's Office is delighted that you want to represent your fellow students and serve the Law School through the SBA.  The SBA is vital to our operations, and the SBA cannot operate without leaders like you.

The work of the SBA begins each summer, when the SBA plans very important 1L orientation events.  The Dean's Office could not greet our many new students properly without the SBA's help in organizing social activities (baseball games, receptions, etc.), administering locker rentals, and arranging used book sales, and so forth.

Once the school year begins, the SBA assists in setting important policies throughout the Law School.  Students selected by the SBA participate on nearly all faculty committees.  They help us decide what courses to offer, whom to hire as professors, which faculty members to promote, how to use computer technology in our classrooms, and much more.

The Dean's Office relies heavily on the SBA's leaders for advice on important questions.  This year, for example, we have discussed topics like how to improve the evening program, how to ensure that more textbooks are available at the start of the semester, and how we should make up classes missed because of the snow.

You may have heard that the SBA over the years has won various American Bar Association leadership awards.  In my view, a key factor has been the SBA's excellent relationship with the Dean's Office.  Mutual respect and trust is what spurs the funding, cooperation, and enthusiasm that allows the SBA to accomplish so much.  SBAs at other law schools reportedly do not have this close relationship with the administration, and they are certainly weaker as a result.

We are convinced that our SBA has the betterment of the Law School as its primary goal.  Thank you for wanting to be leaders of this important organization.  We hope you will strive to work with the Dean's Office as your predecessors have done.  We want you to achieve the same kinds of success.

Sincerely,

Gregory E. Maggs

Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs