When Jason Goldberg '98 got up at a moot court session last month to argue against
the legality of a search and seizure, he remembered what he learned from his Steinmetz
presentation last spring.
So, he gripped the lectern with both hands, stood straight and delivered a clear,
concise and persuasive argument.
“Steinmetz taught me not to fidget,” recalls Goldberg, a first-year student
at Brooklyn Law School. “After my presentation last year, Professor (James) Adrian
came up to me and said, 'Jay, I loved your talk, but I was distracted by you moving
your pen.' Since then, I've been careful to stand still and not move my hands
unnecessarily.”
Goldberg's experience is not unusual, says Bradley Lewis, associate dean for
undergraduate education, who hears often from students who have learned valuable lessons
through the symposium.
“The value of doing a Steinmetz presentation is disproportionate to the amount of
time the student is standing up talking,” Lewis said.
“This is almost something of a professional conference for the students, and they
work with their adviser not only on the material but on their presentation, Lewis said.
“For the student, there is a heightened awareness of how they look and how they
present themselves, and that is what they must face after college.”
Lewis recalls a recent Steinmetz presentation by a student who was talking on
appeasement of the Nazis during World War II. She was surprised that no fewer than 10
faculty members came to her presentation and engaged her in discussion afterward.
“It was so wonderful because she had done a piece of work that faculty in the
field found very interesting,” he recalls.
“Steinmetz is a way for the faculty to say to the student, 'we take you
seriously as an academic.'”