Along the Colonnade 6
W&L
Law Professor Murchison Celebrates the Liberal Arts at Convocation
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n “The Liberal Arts in Practice,” his address to the Sept. tory, sociology, biology, poetry, literature and written and 9 opening convocation of the 2015–2016 academic oral communication. year, Brian C. Murchison told the audience of first Murchison touted the critical role that writing plays year students, undergraduate seniors and third-year law in a liberal arts education. “The clinical experience was students that the liberal arts at very much an engagement W&L are about “the enlargewith writing,” he remembered. ment of mind and soul, the “Not just things we had to process of questioning and disread, but sentences we had to covering the meaning and worth write.” of things, and ultimately about On that topic, he related defining what it is to be human an anecdote from his own and what it is to take up civic senior year, at Yale University. and moral responsibility.” “When it comes to writing,” Murchison, the Charles S. Murchison said, “in some Rowe Professor of Law, has corner of my soul is the voice taught at W&L’s School of Law of a man I learned from in since 1982. His subject matcollege, William Zinsser.” ter includes administrative The renowned journalist and law, mass media law, jurisprunonfiction writer, who died Friends and colleagues: Uncas McThenia ’58, ’63L, dence, torts, and contemporary in May of this year, taught the James P. Morefield Professor of Law Emeritus, and problems in law and journalism. nonfiction writing at Yale and Brian Murchison, the Charles S. Rowe Professor of Law, celebrate Murchison’s convocation address. He served as the acting dean of was the master of Murchison’s the School of Law from 2006 to residential college. Although 2007. he had not taken a class Calling it “a product of liberal arts collaboration at its from Zinsser, Murchison sought his advice when he was best,” Murchison used as his touchstone this year’s 20th pondering whether to keep going with school, to teach or anniversary of the W&L Black Lung Clinic, wherein law to enter the Peace Corps. Zinsser asked him, “Which of students represent coal miners and their survivors who these things would present the most challenge?” are pursuing federal black lung benefits. He served as a “I suppose [that] is always the question of the liberal supervising attorney for the clinic from 1996 to 1999. arts,” said Murchison. “Where can you best enlarge your Murchison told the audience, which also included the mind, your sympathies, your participation in the world?” faculty, how the clinic took root in the early 1990s with a He chose the Peace Corps, where he enlarged his mind W&L law course taught by Andrew “Uncas” McThenia “so much that it hurt,” he said. ’58, ’63L, the James P. Morefield Professor of Law Emeri “I credit Zinsser in large part with helping me ask the tus. The course, which Murchison attended, examined right question. And of course, that is what writing does. a West Virginia mine disaster from 1969, a subsequent To write a sensible sentence requires understanding your strike, and the eventual passage of a law to compensate topic, asking questions about it until you’ve asked the miners with occupational lung disease. The students right one. And in the Black Lung Clinic, that act of writing and Murchison learned that nevertheless, 20 years later, is the vehicle for bringing everything together in coherent, disabled coal miners rarely won such cases against their persuasive words.” former employers. Echoing Murchison’s theme of liberal arts collabora “Liberal arts learning can be like this,” said Murchition, the ceremony also included the University Singers son. “It can begin with an intensive study of facts or ideas, performing “The Lake Isle,” by Ola Gjeilo, under the direcand the encounter with the reality of a time and place can tion of Shane Lynch, associate professor of music. The stick in your mind. Sometimes, when the class is done composition contains stanzas from the poem “The Lake and the semester is over, it’s not really done, it’s not really Isle of Innisfree,” by W.B. Yeats. Marc Conner, W&L’s asover. A liberal arts experience can haunt a student whose sociate provost and the Jo M. and James Ballengee Profesmind has been opened, even a crack. We were definitely sor of English, gave a mini-lecture about the Yeats piece. haunted.” “This, then, is a poem that longs to go back home,” he said, After the conclusion of the course, McThenia and “certainly an experience that many a college student will other law professors pursued the establishment of the experience, whether in her first week on the new campus Black Lung Clinic at W&L to handle the coal miners’ or at other moments during the college season.” claims. They realized that the participating students You may watch the entire convocation at http:// would have to dive into many fields besides the law: hislivestream.com/wlu/fall-convocation-2015. Alumni
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