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Highlights from Issues and Trends: Judicial Branch Education Challenges and Opportunies
by Cathy White

Like other entities, judicial branch education is confronted with contemporary short-term challenges, long-range, pervasive issues, and opportunities for professional growth and development. Among the respondents who completed surveys for eventual publication in Issues and Trends in Judicial Branch Education 2005, the challenges or issues reported over the course of the next five years include: budget and finances; new and/or expanded subject matter; personnel; policy, governance and infrastructure; curriculum development; distance education applications, technology; miscellaneous issues; and needs assessment and evaluation.

The following table illustrates the reported frequency of those judicial branch education challenges and long-range issues. As expected, budget and finance concerns pervade most organizational respondents followed distantly by the emergence of new and/or expanded subject matter; personnel; policy, governance, and infrastructure; curriculum development; distance education applications; technology; miscellaneous issues; and needs assessment and evaluation.

Complete descriptions of those individualized responses that comprised and/or contributed to the development of each main challenge or issue category can be found in Issues and Trends in Judicial Branch Education 2005.

Judicial Branch Education Opportunities
While challenges abound, many opportunities present themselves for judicial branch education in the next 5 years. These opportunities include technology advances and distance learning, interest in and demand for judicial branch education, relationships, collaborations and networking, funding, and miscellaneous.

The following table illustrates the reported frequency of those judicial branch education opportunities. Technology advances and distance learning, in addition to interest in and demand for judicial branch education, were reported with identical frequency by organizational respondents. Relationships, collaborations and networking, funding, and other responses comprised the remaining opportunities responses. See Issues and Trends in Judicial Branch Education 2005 for a complete description of those individualized responses that comprised and/or contributed to the development of each main opportunity category.

Several of the key judicial branch education challenges or opportunities reported here coincide with challenges or opportunities identified in the 1999 edition of Issues and Trends in Judicial Branch Education. The replicated challenges include funding, new and/or expanded subject matter, curriculum development, distance education applications, and technology while the replicated opportunities include technology advances and distance learning.

Please contact the JERITT Project at jeritt@ssc.msu.edu to secure your copy of Issues and Trends in Judicial Branch Education 2005 today.

Cathy White is an academic specialist with the JERITT Project. She holds a Masters degree in criminal justice from Michigan State University and periodically teaches research methods to undergraduate students within the school of criminal justice. Her interests include research methods, court administration, structural inequality, and intersections of race, class, gender, & the courts.

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