About Flash Classes

A Flash Class is a gathering of one or more professors and up to 15 students to discuss the legal issues raised by a current hot topic. The class professor(s) introduces the topic and some of the legal issues raised by the topic, and leads a discussion among the students.

Flash Classes will typically be offered “spontaneously” (within one week of their announcement), run about 30 – 45 minutes, and be organized as brown bag lunches (often in the faculty lunch room, which is through the doors at the back of the cafeteria). Materials related to each Flash Class, such as articles and videos, are posted on the BLS page for the Flash Class. (Flash Classes are not for course credit.)

The purpose of the Flash Class is to encourage discussion, so enrollment is limited to 15 students on a first-come, first-serve basis. After you have signed up, you will receive a confirmation receipt, followed by a notice that you: (1) have been admitted to the class, (2) are on the waiting list, or (3) are encouraged to try again another time. One way to ensure that you will receive a slot is to organize your own Flash Class, as described below.

Flash Class Set-Up Instructions

Flash Classes are intended to respond to students’ interests, so you and your classmates should feel free to organize your own Flash Class. It’s a simple process:

  1. Choose a hot topic for a Flash Class,
  2. Recruit a professor(s) to run it,
  3. Ask the professor(s) to arrange a class time and place (e.g., the faculty lunch room) through Merlinda Burnett in the Dean’s office,
  4. With the professor(s), write up a brief description of the topic and some of the legal issues raised, and collect some relevant materials for posting, and
  5. Submit the description, material links, time, date, and meeting location to Professor Bullard for approval and posting.

Please join the Flash Class Email List if you would to receive announcements of new Flash Classes.

Flash Classes reflect a re-combination of: (1) the use of social media to organize flash mobs, which are described in Wikipedia as: “a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and sometimes seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment and/or satire,” and (2) Flash Seminars that are taught at the University of Virginia. We hope that Flash Classes at Ole Miss Law will improve through trial and error and faculty/student input.