Teaching the Same Course a Different Way
by
Angela Gilmore

At Nova Southeastern University Law Center, substantive courses are offered in basically three formats: classes, seminars, and workshops. Classes may contain as many as 100 students, and students' grades are typically determined by their performance on an exam. Seminars are generally capped at 18, and students are evaluated on the basis of a substantial research paper and class participation. Workshops are capped at 20, and professors are free to design both the classroom component and the evaluation mechanism as they deem fit.

Last year, after having taught Nonprofit Organizations as a traditional class several times, I offered the course as a workshop. Because I wanted the workshop to incorporate the learning of both substantive law and practical skills, I pared down the syllabus to allow time for in-class projects and presentations by the students. In the traditional Nonprofit Organizations class, we cover issues of state law relating to the formation, operation, and dissolution of nonprofit organizations and charitable solicitation. In addition, we discuss federal tax law concerning the organization and operation of several different types of exempt organizations, particularly charitable, social welfare, and social/recreational organizations. To make room for in-class assignments, I limited the coverage of exempt organizations to public charitable organizations, commonly referred to as 501(c)(3) public charities.

I had four major goals for the workshop. I wanted the students to:

• Learn what it means to represent charitable organizations as a practicing attorney,
• Become familiar with the substantive law concerning charitable organizations,
• Develop and practice skills that attorneys representing charitable organizations use while representing their clients, and
• Have fun.

During the third week of class, I invited an attorney to speak to the workshop about representing charitable organizations. By this point in the semester the students had an overview of this area of the law and were able to ask informed questions of the speaker. This accomplished my first goal.

It was important to me that the students learn about the relation among common law, constitutional law, state statutes, and the Internal Revenue Code in the regulation of charitable organizations. The text for the course was Schwarz and Fishman, which I supplemented with problems and exercises that I drafted. During the first part of most of the workshop sessions we covered the material in fairly traditional ways with me at the front of the room. During the second part of the session, the students would divide into small groups to work on problems and other exercises involving the material we had earlier discussed. This gave the students the opportunity to work with their colleagues applying the law to hypothetical fact patterns. In addition, the students were required to write a research paper. This assignment gave the students the opportunity to explore in depth an issue related to charitable organizations that was of particular interest to the student. These three teaching techniques accomplished my second goal.

Providing the students with practical experience was my third goal. I devised two drafting assignments for the workshop. One was an individual project, the second a group project.

The individual assignment required the students to draft a contract. One complaint that I have often heard uttered by students is that they graduate from law school without having ever drafted a contract, so I decided to include such a project in the workshop. This project required each student to hire an executive director for the organization that their group had created, according to the directions set forth in the assignment.

For the group assignment, I had the students divide into self-selected groups of no more than four. Each group was required to form a charitable organization under state law. I did not give the students much more direction than that, although in class we had discussed formation issues and the purposes for which nonprofit organizations can be formed. This exercise required the students to study the Florida statutes to determine which documents were necessary for formation, the filing fees, and where to file. To help the students understand the connection between state nonprofit law regarding formation and federal law regarding qualification as a 501(c)(3) organization, the students were required to draft a memorandum discussing why their organization would be entitled to exemption under 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

The most difficult project to devise for the workshop was the public speaking assignment. In addition to forming a nonprofit organization, each group was also directed to create some sort of resource tool for their organization. Some of the examples given to the students included a manual for directors describing their legal duties to the corporation or a guide discussing charitable solicitation. The public speaking assignment required each group to present its organization and resource tool to the class.

The students' projects exceeded my expectations. They developed PowerPoint slides, Web sites, newsletters, brochures, and overhead presentations designed to introduce their organizations to their relevant communities, beneficiaries, and potential donors. While some of the resource tools were not technically legal resources, they were descriptive and informative.

The benefits of offering a course as a workshop are many. Among them are small class size, greater interaction with and between the students, and time during the semester to evaluate assignments and provide feedback to the students. While I will do some tinkering with the workshop based on my evaluations and student comments, I believe that the goals I had for the course were met. And yes, the students and I had fun.