Irina Tarsis, 2L

Contributor

I don’t know about you (well, I know about some of you) but I like Cardozo. I like having all of my classes in one building. I like having the faculty confined here as well, and thus being theoretically available for my unexpected visits. In general, I like being at the school and learning, Socratic method or not.

Admittedly, I am not a big fan of the load-bearing, view-obstructing columns so prominently displayed in most of the classrooms and I don’t necessarily like kosher pizza (perhaps because it is no longer a novelty). Still, I can accept these as a part of the general landscape. But some things are just plain unacceptable, both here and in the so-called real world. They are not fatal nor are they inherent to the school’s operation. Once corrected, the school stands to be a place more people like. Let me illustrate (in no particular order):

Problem 1.1. Cardozo Courtesy (or lack thereof)

Location: Eleven Floors of 55 Fifth Avenue, New York

Association: Yeshiva University

Mode of transportation: 3.5 elevators (because how many people know about the fourth one? Really?)

The basic manual of public transportation usage states that if you are riding an elevator you should hold the door if somebody is hustling to get on. You should avoid blocking the panel so that others may see what floors have been selected and press the button corresponding to the floor to which they are going. You really should get out and let people off if you are going higher and the person behind you is desperately trying to get off. After all, that is what you would expect them to do for you.

Problem 1.2. Food Matters

Raise your hand if you buy food at the school cafeteria. Anybody? Somebody? Nobody?! So my question is: Who is buying food at our cafeteria? And if nobody is buying it after having purchased it once (lesson learned), then where is it going? And more importantly, why can we not get better food, or cheaper food, or both? Now, in graduate school, our choices are limited and barely edible? Surely, it is not because the food has to be kosher. The Yellow Pages offer plenty of phone numbers of kosher caterers around Greenwich Village. Somehow it just does not make it into our lunchroom. Why? Do hungry students do better on the Bar exam? Is there some kosher mafia not allowing others access to the stomachs and wallets of the soon-to-be-well-paid but still-needing-to-be-well-fed law students? Perhaps the new dean could solve this mystery.

Problem 1.3. The “Journal” Experience

Life is about the journey, not the destination, or so we think. Well, at least until it comes to cite-checking.1 If you cannot go to NYU to get the missing sources, you have to pick between John Jay, Brooklyn and whatever else we have available. But there is more to the process and you can lose a lot of time figuring it out (just ask those who have taken the trip to John Jay Law Library only to be turned away because they did not have a library pass signed by the Cardozo librarians).

How to save time and cite-check well:

(1) Having searched online (Google Scholar and Google Books as well as the electronic resources offered by the library on ANGEL, you realize that you cannot get the article or the chapter that you need neither online, from our own library nor the New York Public Library;

(2) Search WorldCat to find a copy of missing source at one of the local libraries;

(3) Email the Cardozo librarian explaining that you need a library pass and be sure to include the title of the missing source, the call number you found, the location that is convenient for you, and the day you are planning to hit that off-campus library.

(4) After the librarians vet your list and deem it legitimate, i.e. that indeed you have done your due diligence and you absolutely CANNOT get your hands on that article by searching online or by going to the New York Public Library (that’s NYPL and not NYU) then they will issue you a one-day pass to one of the consortium libraries (list not attached because by this point in time it really does not matter). You should be able to stop by the 7th floor to pick it up after it is ready and signed. No need to antagonize the libraries further by hovering over their heads.

Critical,

I

1 Cite-checking: Staffers’ responsibility to retrieve and check each source cited by any given contributing author to confirm that the citations and the pagination are correct before an article may be published.