Star Trek: TNG As a Teaching Tool For First Year Courses

Andrew E. Taslitz, American University College of Law, Okianer Christian Dark, Howard University School of Law, and Atiba R. Ellis, West Virginia University College of Law, have published The Star Trek Enrichment Series: An Exploration in Teaching and Learning in volume 58 of the Howard Law Journal (2015). Here is the abstract.

This short essay, a part of the Howard Law Journal’s symposium in honor of the contributions of the late Professor Andrew E. Taslitz, discusses the authors’ experiences teaching the Star Trek Enrichment Series (“the Series”) at the Howard University School of Law. The Series was a six-session, one semester, non-credit course designed to creatively use Star Trek as a teaching tool in the legal academy, with particular attention to the needs of first-year students. This essay discusses our aims for the Series. It then situates the Series (and this essay) within the literature on the use of Star Trek as a tool for post-secondary teaching. Finally it reflects on the specific contributions of our dear colleague Andrew Taslitz to the Series. We designed the Series to reinforce students’ understanding of doctrine, to improve students’ understanding of jurisprudence, and to draw larger connections between the law, culture, and society. We posit that this innovation, spurred by Professor Taslitz and combining all our talents, is an important and substantial contribution to the practice and the literature on teaching and learning.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.