Soon, you might not need to set foot in a classroom to get a degree from the NYU School of Law.
Starting this fall, the school is offering a new graduate program that will let part-time students attend NYU and get a degree over the internet.
The new "Executive L.L.M. in Tax" will feature online videos of prerecorded lectures, often taught in conjunction with "live" sections of classes. All students will take the same exams and be graded on the same curves, Faculty Director and law professor Noël Cunningham said.
The law school will admit 25 online students this fall, he said.
"The tax program at the law school is the best in the country," he said. "We thought if we offered something online we would be able to allow people - lawyers in other cites, in other countries - to get the benefit of what we teach."
Cunningham said that there would essentially be no difference between the online program and the current in-residence program.
Professor Laura Cunningham is currently teaching two parallel sections, one live section and one online section, of her partnership tax class this semester.
"At this point, the only way I know I'm online is there's a camera in the back of the room," she said.
Cunningham said that she thinks online learning can be beneficial for students who could not otherwise get to the NYU campus and in-residence students who want to watch lectures again.
But not all NYU law professors are sold on online learning.
H. David Rosenbloom, the director of the international tax program at NYU Law, said that he wasn't behind the idea of offering classes online for students.
"I am actually of the view as a teacher that the pedagogical experience is a person-to-person experience rather than just an exposition of information," he said.
Last year, one of Rosenbloom's classes recorded from the previous year was given as an online offering in the pilot program.
"[The class] was technically fine, but I didn't find it very satisfying," he said.
Lewis Steinberg, a law professor and school trustee, said he thinks that there can be both drawbacks and benefits to online learning.
"There's an immediacy to having students in front of you and having students kind of looking at each other, learning from each other and having the ability to ask questions in real time," he said.
"On the flip side, it gives the ability to students who for whatever reason wouldn't have access to the course or the program, it gives them the chance to do it," he said. "You have to weigh one against the other."
Robyn Baitcher is deputy university editor. E-mail her at rbaitcher@nyunews.com.
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