THE ENTREPRENEURS WITH NO GARAGE PROJECT: PROTECTING OWNERSHIP INTERESTS AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ON A SHOESTRING BUDGET
by Perry Binder
KEY WORDS: ENTREPRENEURSHIP, BUSINESS LAW, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, SHAREHOLDER AGREEMENT, WORK FOR HIRE AGREEMENT, RISK ASSESSMENT, PEDAGOGY
ABSTRACT:
Entrepreneurs with No Garage is a team project focusing on the most common mistakes that people make when forming a business without legal counsel. In the assignment, students assume the role of a hypothetical business partner in a start-up with only $500 for initial legal costs. Students participate in exercises that allocate these funds; assess personal and company risk levels; draft a Shareholder Agreement entailing different roles and capital contributions; and write a Work for Hire agreement with a clause conferring intellectual property ownership. The project is broken up into short and flexible modules, with an a la carte menu for Legal Studies professors to choose from and use in a business law course.
CITROPOLIS: AN EXPERIENTIAL CLASSROOM EXERCISE IN ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
By Craig Barkacs and Linda Barkacs
KEY WORDS: ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, GOVERNMENT REGULATION OF BUSINESS, INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES, ETHICS, DISCRIMINATION, POLLUTION, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY; TITLE VI OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964
ABSTRACT:
While environmental issues are literally matters of life and death, academic literature and classroom lectures sometimes fail to capture the attention of students in a substantive or engaging way. The classroom exercise featured in this article not only introduces students to the crucially important topic of environmental justice, but also encourages students to recognize how they may be complicit in matters of environmental injustice.
TOWARD MORE EFFECTIVE FACULTY EVALUATION
By Carol Bast
KEY WORDS: FACULTY EVALUATION, TEACHING EVALUATION, SCHOLARSHIP EVALUATION, RESEARCH EVALUATION, SERVICE EVALUATION, ANNUAL FACULTY EVALUATION, EVALUATION OF TEACHING, SCHOLARSHIP, AND SERVICE; EVALUATION OF TEACHING, RESEARCH, AND SERVICE
ABSTRACT:
Faculty evaluations play a lead role in supporting the healthiness of the department in a secondary educational institution. Such measures may be used to identify a department’s strengths and weaknesses, offering an opportunity to set forth goals for the future. The two main reasons for evaluating faculty are to enhance faculty performance and to make personnel decisions. This article provides overall information on faculty evaluation
and was used to set the stage for the ongoing revision of the Department of Legal Studies of the University of Central Florida (UCF) annual evaluation standards.
SPEED OF LIGHT VERSUS SPEED OF SOUND
By Jill Jasperson, Ronald Mellado Miller, and Maureen Snow Andrade
KEY WORDS: FACE-TO-FACE, DISTANCE EDUCATION, ONLINE EDUCATION, BUSINESS LAW, PEDAGOGY, TESTING, UNDERGRADUATE BUSINESS LAW, LEGAL EDUCATION, DROPOUT, LEGAL TOPICS, BUSINESS SCHOOL, RETENTION, MOTIVATION, LEARNING OUTCOMES, STUDENT SATISFACTION, MODE OF DELIVERY
ABSTRACT:
While undergraduate business law classes are taught around the world, there is scant literature comparing online and face-to-face versions of these courses. This study compared quiz scores, exam scores, final grades, and dropout rates across six years for over 1,100 online and face-to-face students enrolled in an upper division undergraduate business law course. The study also analyzed students’ comprehension of the legal topics
covered. The differences in online and face-to-face modalities were significant, but more importantly, showed that face-to-face business law students outperformed those in the online sections. The study contributes to the growing empirical literature on the effectiveness of face-to-face and online modalities. First, it provided a direct comparison between online and traditional instruction with business law students in an undergraduate setting with the same instructor. Second, it identified topics that were problematic for both sets of students.
TEACHING BUSINESS LAW TO NON-LAWYERS
By Dawn Levy
KEY WORDS: BUSINESS LAW, LEGAL ENVIRONMENT OF BUSINESS, COMMUNITY COLLEGE, PEDAGOGY, UNDERGRADUATE BUSINESS, STUDENT ENGAGEMENT, BUSINESS LAW TEACHING, BUSINESS ETHICS, LEGAL STUDIES, BUSINESS SKILLS
ABSTRACT:
Business law undergraduate courses provide a legal, regulatory and constitutional framework for students to integrate the concepts and models that are introduced in other business classes. This paper proposes a three-pronged engagement approach for teaching business law to community college undergraduate business students that maximizes course relevance and utility for career preparedness. When instructors 1) address
students’ prior beliefs regarding the law 2) illustrate the law with relatable real-world examples and 3) reinforce the value added for students in studying law for their future careers, community college business students can appreciate the significance of the course to support them in strategic operational and managerial decision making.