Valparaiso Law School reduces faculty, class size to prepare for a different future

Marilyn Odendahl:

Valparaiso Law School is hardly the first to feel the pain of falling student applications, but as the subject of a recent profile in the New York Times, its troubles may be the most well-known.

In February, the northwest Indiana institution announced it was going to reduce its faculty and class sizes in response to fewer lawyers finding jobs and fewer students wanting to get a J.D. Valparaiso offered buyouts to all tenured faculty members.

The harsh spotlight was on Valparaiso again when The Gray Lady published a long article June 17 about the law school’s plight. The newspaper found alumni who were heavily in debt and interviewed professors who were rethinking the decisions to accept less-qualified students to keep enrollment steady when applications dropped.