In with the new

Jessica Kerr from Omapere received a 2008 Fulbright New Zealand General Graduate Award to complete a Master of Laws degree at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. One of the first of this year’s New Zealand graduate students to touch base in the US, she reports on her first impressions of an historic Ivy League university.

Jessica Kerr gets acquainted with fellow Fulbrighters on a Mississippi steam boat (above) and explores the surrounds of Yale University with classmates (below - photo courtesy of Yale Law School)

Flying into New Orleans hot on the heels of Hurricane Dolly, over a giant oil spill in the Mississippi and into a city of thunderstorms, oppressive heat, unforgettable jazz and super-sized everything made for a dramatic start to my Fulbright year. The three weeks I and another New Zealand Fulbrighter, Rob Vosslamber, spent at Tulane University were designed to give us an introduction to the US legal system and help us catch our breath before the year began in earnest.

There were definitely some academic eye-openers, like the day spent in court watching first-time marijuana possession accused, some of whom had been in custody for days, shuffling in shackled at their wrists and ankles. But the city was a whole learning curve in itself. Being robbed on our first night out in the French Quarter may have been a little too educational for comfort, but everyone else I met was so overwhelmingly friendly that it was hard to take away anything other than happy memories – in fact, memories verging on awe at how such a ravaged city had sustained an incredible, all-pervading mood of dedication to eating, drinking and generally making merry.

Onwards and upwards (literally) from Louisiana, I survived Philadelphia airport and staggered into the more sedate environs of Yale Law School, where the first week flew by, recovering from sensory overload and letting the tranquil New England summer ease me into an appropriately dignified Ivy League state of mind. New Haven is a small city, perched on the coastal arc between Boston and NYC, with a fairly grim reputation that I’m now beginning to understand as stemming from the pervasive (and, for a New Zealander, un-ignorable) economic gulf between Yalies and, well, almost everyone else around here. In the central Yale campus area it’s breathtakingly pretty, and in the late summer the campus buildings – which could be described as a testament to Americans’ complete unconcern with historical snobbery – almost seem to glow. Even my underdeveloped colonial sense of history had to respond to the surreal vibe of our gorgeous Harry Potter-style Sterling Law Building, which proudly juxtaposes several distinct architectural eras and many artfully “repaired” leadlight windows –making it easy to forget that it was all constructed in the space of a year or so in the 1920s.

Our orientation into the “small but perfectly formed” law school community was perfectly managed – it’s amazing how quickly my sense of unmitigated unworthiness (which seems to be standard for YLS international students!) faded as a succession of accomplished and articulate faculty and undergraduates reached out to welcome me. And it was astonishing to realize that my announcement of my nationality (if there was any doubt about it from my apparently incomprehensible accent) was a source of much, much more than polite curiosity or even predictable amusement. There really is a sense of wonder about our tiny, tough little country and how we seem to have escaped so much of the grief and rage that fills the political and cultural histories of classmates, especially those from Latin America and Eastern Europe. Taking the first tentative steps towards seeing my personal and national history through the eyes of perceptive, interested people from all over the world has already opened my eyes in a way that I don’t think any amount of sitting and thinking at home could have done.And it really has been true so far, as we were told on our first day, that the richest part of the learning experience at this very sophisticated institution is often in simple conversation – in talking, and listening, and marvelling at the space that opens up as our different perspectives gain new depth and possibility in relation to each other. Which isn’t to say that the formal teaching environment isn’t wonderful – I’m lucky (or foolhardy) enough to be taking only very small seminar courses this semester, which puts me in astonishing and pretty daunting proximity to professors I could spend a whole lifetime listening to, if they didn’t spend most of the time listening to us and inviting us to discover and sharpen our own ideas.

Did I mention that when I’m not in class, in conversation or in rapture at the fall foliage just starting to turn, I’ve been walking 100 metres down the road to a hall where I’ve seen Tony Blair speak one week, Bill Clinton the next, and had the unbelievable good fortune to be allowed to sit in on three absolutely blissful (for me) days of frank and inspired discussions between some of the most distinguished Supreme Court judges in the world? I’ve eight months left at Yale to soak in everything I can, and this new life in New Haven, in a country that may be about to usher in an entirely new political age, won’t be getting old in a hurry.