FACULTY INSIGHT: JOAN SAMMARTINO TURNER ’77
former lawyer teaches appreciation and compassion FACULTY INSIGHT by Jessica H. Turner ’06
J
oan Sammartino Turner ’77 has a long history with Notre Dame, beginning in 1973 when she entered the Academy as a freshman, to today where she teaches AP Comparative Government, chairs the Social Studies Department, and coaches Notre Dame’s Mock Trial team. Before she started teaching United States History and Civics in 1999, Turner was a practicing lawyer, but even that career path was connected to the Academy. “During my senior year, my class was the first to take Supreme Court Decisions with Sister Nancy Bonshock, SNDdeN,” she remembers. “I had always found political science interesting, but it was that class that inspired me to go to law school.” Turner received her B.A. in Political Science from Villanova University and went on to Temple University School of Law to receive her J.D. She was a judicial law clerk in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas for the Hon. Thomas D. Watkins. She also accepted court appointments to represent defendants who could not afford attorneys in certain criminal cases. “Since I practiced law for a relatively short amount of time before I went into teaching, people have asked if I wasted my legal education. I would say a resounding no! Education is never wasted, even
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if you change your direction. You always learn something from your experiences. The value of a law education is far reaching because it teaches you how to think logically, critically, and analytically, and it’s those skills that I teach in my classes and Mock Trial.” What Turner loves about Mock Trial is that the students have to argue both sides of a case, because “any good lawyer should be able to anticipate what the other side is going to argue. Preparing both sides strengthens the students’ skills because they have to take a holistic view of the case and construct arguments in support of each position. In order to formulate logical arguments, they must first understand the reasoning of the opposition, even if it is not the side they would choose to represent.” Turner became a Mock Trial coach soon after she started teaching at Notre Dame. “Ellen Lipschutz, our former Dean of Students, asked me to listen to the students before they went to a competition, and I was hooked! I coached many successful years with Ellen until her retirement. Our teams frequently come in first or second in Delaware County and often go to regional playoffs. Twice we went to the state competition in Harrisburg. After Ellen retired, Social Studies teacher Sean Quigg began coaching with me.”