| Looking beyond ‘right and wrong’ Washington Semester’s Rossotti encourages students to challenge beliefs BY ADRIENNE FRANK
Photo by Jeff Watts
Jack Rossotti
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Featuring names like John Roberts, Jack Rossotti’s Rolodex ensures that his students are among Washington’s best connected people.
Rossotti, who teaches Washington Semester’s Public Law seminar, boasts a network of about 1,000 prominent judges, attorneys, journalists, and activists, 50 of whom he calls on every semester to address his students. “I’ve been doing this for a long time, so I’ve learned the value of networking. It doesn’t hurt to do some Google research, too,” laughs Rossotti, who’s in his 22nd year at Washington Semester. Impeccably organized, Rossotti often schedules high-profile speakers, including the Supreme Court justices who address his class each semester, three years in advance. “I’ve discovered that knowing the schedulers is almost as important as knowing the speakers, themselves,” he says. Rossotti understands the guest speakers “are part of what makes Washington Semester so unique,” so he strives to give students the most influential and thought-provoking lineup of lecturers possible. Generally, students meet with the speakers—who include federal district court and superior court judges, public interest group leaders, and private attorneys—off campus so they can see the professionals in action. “The students arrive here with such enthusiasm; they want to soak up as much knowledge from these people as they can,” Rossotti explains. “Often, they’ll debate the issues with the speakers, and it can get very heated. That’s fun for the speakers, though, because they want to engage the students and challenge their opinions. Founded by Rossotti in 1988, the Public Law seminar is one of Washington Semester’s biggest draws, often attracting more than 30 students. Because the majority of students are law school bound, the seminar focuses on judicial process and constitutional law. Rossotti covers “a tremendous amount of ground during the semester,” including campaign finance law, constitutional aspects of Congress, and such civil liberty issues as affirmative action, gun control, abortion, and the death penalty. “The issues we cover are controversial, very often divisive, and they’re the kind of issues that students have to look at in a more complex way than simply ‘right or wrong,’” says Rossotti. “Often, students struggle with that. They’ll look at issues in a one-sided way, and my job is to show them that there’s more than one side to the issue—sometimes there’s three or four.” During the unit on abortion, for example, Rossotti and his students visit a clinic to meet with the nurse practitioner who performs the procedure, and they also visit a crisis pregnancy center to learn more about the pro-life perspective. This semester, students also spent a day at a Baltimore prison. “Field trips like that are very controversial, but that’s the name of the game here,” Rossotti says. Rossotti holds a PhD in political science from Syracuse University and a law degree from Catholic University. And while he’s been at Washington Semester longer than any other faculty member, teaching is actually Rossotti’s third career. For five years he was a practicing attorney, concentrating on insurance defense litigation. He also worked as a broadcast journalist for three years, both in Syracuse and Washington. “I had taught at Washington Semester before I went to law school, and when I decided I was ready for a midcareer change, it seemed like the logical thing for me to do again,” he says. “I enjoyed the other things I did, and I think they made me a better professor. But I’m extremely happy here; Washington Semester has been an absolutely wonderful part of my life.” Rossotti’s dedication to his craft isn’t lost on his students who, in 2001, dedicated a tree to him on the Tenley campus. “What can you say about something like that?” says Rossotti. “It was the most incredible and satisfying moment of my tenure here.” |
