I survived the retreat. Based on this experience, so far I think neither my fears nor Eric Muller's enthusiasm were justified, as we didn't really do anything except brainstorming. If, however, there is meaningful followthrough on a few of the more substantial ideas brainstormed, then I'll have to admit that Eric was right.
The first of today's two main activities involved breaking up into small groups to come up with implementable ideas, with each groups focused on a particular area drawn from yesterday's discussion. The facilitators wanted to assign us randomly to groups, but the faculty rebelled, and demanded the right to select the groups that we were most interested in. To the facilitators' evident surprise, we divided up evenly enough for this to work. Perhaps as a result of being self-selected, most of the groups came up with a cornucopia of ideas, far more than we could put into practice. It will be interesting to see what process is used for triage, and what follow-through (if any) we have. Especially, given that several of the more interesting ideas gore oxen…
The second of today's major activities was a pleasant outdoor lunch by the ocean, while watching some of the colleagues get very, very, very excited (“KILL! KILL!”) about the UM-Florida State game. You have not lived until you see ordinarily sober law professors alternate between scholarly dissections of passing strategies and rampant boosterism. Although UM was ranked above Florida State, they had the point spread. And, happily, UM won 22-14 in the rain, although it wasn't at all pretty.
