Beyond the Virtual Classroom: Student Engagement and Community in Distance Legal Education – 2026 Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS) Annual Conference
Looking forward to contributing this afternoon at the 2026 Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS) Annual Conference.
I am pleased to participate in the Distance Education Workshop – Focus on the Students, taking place today, Monday, July 27, from 3:30–6:00 p.m.
As legal education continues to evolve, this workshop provides an important opportunity to reflect on a central question for law schools and universities: how can we ensure that technology enhances—not diminishes—the student learning experience?
I look forward to contributing to the discussion on student engagement, professional identity, community building, experiential learning, accessibility, and the opportunities and challenges associated with synchronous and asynchronous education.
My contribution will draw on many years of experience teaching both in person and remotely across law, public policy, public administration, and interdisciplinary programs. At West Virginia University, in addition to my in-person teaching, I taught numerous fully online, synchronous graduate courses, including Public Financial Management, Public Service Leadership, Public and Non-Profit Budgeting, the MPA Capstone Seminar, Democratic Context of Public Administration, Public Administration and Policy Development, and Energy and Environmental Policy.
At the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, my online teaching also included intersession courses in International Trade Law, International Environmental Law, Law of China, and Global Environmental Law. During and since the COVID-19 pandemic, my broader teaching experience has included online and international courses in Climate Change Law, Energy Law, Technology Law, Business and Commercial Law, Legislation and Regulation, and Cultural Heritage Law, including teaching connected with international programs in China, Europe, and Middle East.
My perspective is also informed by more than two decades of designing and leading international educational programs, including the China Summer Law Institute, which progressively integrated online and hybrid components to connect students, faculty, and institutions across jurisdictions.
These experiences have reinforced my view that successful distance education requires much more than transferring lectures to an online platform. It requires the intentional design of participation, mentoring, peer interaction, collaborative assignments, individualized feedback, and opportunities for students to connect legal and policy analysis with professional practice.
I am particularly interested in discussing how we can prevent students from becoming invisible in an online environment, especially those balancing employment, family responsibilities, different time zones, linguistic differences, or other demands. Distance education should provide multiple pathways for meaningful participation and should use technology not merely to reproduce the traditional classroom, but to create new opportunities for interdisciplinary, international, and cross-institutional learning.
I am grateful to the organizers and fellow participants for bringing together this timely conversation, and I look forward to an engaging exchange of experiences and ideas.
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Paolo Davide Farah, Paolo Farah