Stetson Lawyer; 1974 vol. 17 no. 1 August

RSITY COLLEGE S} &t$amd(uyu&i Volume 17, Number I ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA August, 1974 COLLEGE OF LAW WILL ENTER SEVENTY- FIFTH YEAR "Full Grown But Ever Growing" Characterization Of The School Never More Applicable Than Today CRUMMER HALL: This modern classroom building was completed in 1968. Graduates of the mid- fifties will contrast it with the old, so called "Courtroom" with its falling plaster and "classroom B", where you had to peer around pillars in order to see the professor. In those days complaints were not about the lack of air-conditioning but the almost total lack of any air. Stetson College of Law has just completed its 20th year on the St. Petersburg campus, and during the coming year it will celebrate the 75th anniversary of its founding in 1900. Since its inception it has fought a continuous battle for survival against such common foes of private institutions as lack of facilities, lack of money and a dearth of applications. Its problems have been multiplied by two world wars which took books from the hands of its : On the other hand, the less than $100,000 that the University invested in the St. Petersburg property 20 years ago is now represented by a plant and facilities with a replacement value of $7,500,000. The 1954 library collection, charitably estimated as comprising 16,000 volumes, initially housed in a small, stifling hot and bug-infested building, has grown to 69,000 volumes and is housed in a $1,500,000 modern structure which has a book capacity of 160,000 volumes and up-to-date equipment for study and research. young people and replaced them with guns. Yet, always, it has emerged from each crisis a stronger and better school. Inflation Hurts Its number one enemy today is inflation. In 1900 tuition was $72.60 per year; in 1954, the year of its relocation in St. Petersburg, it was $275.00 per semester; today the annual charge is $2400, with an extra fee for attending the summer session. The 1954 budget has grown from less than $200,000 to $1,200,000; an electric bill of $8,000 in 1954 will be approximately $80,000 during the coming year. An annual expenditure in the library in 1954 of $15,000 has grown to $150,000. Clinical training, unheard of in the mid-fifties, now carries a price tag of more than $30,000 a year. Our Law Review, non-existent until 1970, is published at an annual expense of $12,000. Financial aid for students next year will exceed $100,000 for the first time in the history of the College. Clinical Programs The clinical programs, public defender, prosecution and civil, are now sufficiently large to give 90 third year law students exposure to valuable, practical training each year. Attendance during the academic year 1909-1910 averaged 18 students. The total enrollment the first year in St. Petersburg was 94, of whom 36 were freshmen. The College was literally "beating the bushes" to get students. Today, in order to limit its enrollment to the optimum that experience has shown most likely to produce high scholastic performance and economy of operation (which is about 400-425), the College accepts fewer than seven percent of its applicants. The result, naturally, manifests itself in the quality and caliber of the student body. More Women Enrollees During the summer session just completed, 83 new students were admitted. Of this number about 15 percent were women, 62 of 83 were Florida residents, and the overall undergraduate average of the group approximated "B". The quota for the September entering class, set at not to exceed I 10, has been met since July I. Qualitatively these students will rank slightly higher than the summer group, about one half will be residents of Florida, and 15 percent of the group will again be women. Incidentally the Association of American Law Schools notes the "dramatic increase" in the number of women turning to law as a career and predicts that the present national ratio of 85 hommes to I 5 femmes will become smaller as the years go by. In one accredited law school women in the entering class last year actually outnumbered the males, 67 to 63. College's Position Strong Gratifyingly, and despite spiralling costs of operation, the College of Law appears stronger today, both financially and academically, than at any other time in its history. Our graduates continue to compete favorably with the graduates of other highly reputable law schools on bar examinations and in the job market. And everywhere in legal circles the name of Stetson commands respect. We have come of age, "full grown, but ever growing." However, there can be no room for complacency. Sound administration and (Continued on Page 6)