News Archive

If you're a longtime resident of Indiana, and of a certain age, perhaps you can remember not going back to school until after Labor Day. We Hoosiers hear that in some parts of the country, it's still the case that students don't head back to class until after the first Monday in September.

For the second installment in our series about IU McKinney's history, we thought we would take a peek at when law students began their academic years when our predecessor schools began teaching students. We're looking back in celebration of the school's 125th anniversary, or our quasquicentennial. Bonus points if you know how to pronounce it without Google's help.

Indiana Law School, one of IU McKinney's predecessor schools, began training lawyers in 1894. This is the school that counted former Indiana Senator and 23rd President Benjamin Harrison on its board of advisory trustees. The opening of the school year was October 2. Think about that. Another six weeks of not reading about torts!

Most courses offered in 1894 would look familiar to contemporary law students: Corporations, Evidence, Criminal Law, Contracts. Courses got a little strange sounding by 1911, with classes in Public Offices and Extraordinary Legal Remedies, and Suretyship. And then there was the all encompassing course titled Wrongs, required of 1Ls through at least the early 1970s. It covered just about every kind of "wrong" imaginable.

Classes were still commencing in mid to late September in the early 19th century. IU McKinney students were headed back to class in August by at least the early 1970s. So if current students have mentors and family members among our alumni, you likely haven't heard a story that begins with the phrase, "Back in my day…" Well, maybe you have, but not about the date on the calendar for heading back to class.