Law Schools

Tuition Dollars At Work: Pics Of NYU Law's Over-The-Top Faculty Party

The only thing missing in these pictures are a couple of assistant deans having a money fight with tuition dollars.

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Yesterday, I received my annual holiday card from NYU Law. How sweet. Oh, and look at this! There’s something inside the card. But what flitted down to the desk wasn’t a check from my grandma, but instead, an invitation to send hundreds of dollars to NYU. Just in case the first $150K I gave them wasn’t enough.

Moments later, I opened my email and found tips about the NYU Law Holiday Party for faculty and staff.

I don’t want to fault anybody their holiday cheer, but let’s have a chat about “optics.” If a law school charges students over $54K a year and recently faced questions about gaming non-profit status significant enough to get the U.S. Senate interested, then maybe keep the holiday faculty party on the modest side. Get some wine and cheese and throw up a tree and some lights and call it a day. Classy and understated.

In other words, don’t do this:

This had better be the winning entry on a future episode of Last Cake Standing, because then I’d know the Food Network ultimately paid for this. Plus then I could enjoy watching some poor sap’s slow-motion trainwreck of an attempt to pay tribute to Palsgraf in cake form. Very meta-level.

But as you can see, this cake depicts a lovely afternoon in wine country, which was apparently the theme of the NYU party. And in case you weren’t sure of the theme:

F**king ice sculptures!?! Without much expertise in the chainsaw-molded ice department, I’m going to guess that four custom ice sculptures would run… $2000. Maybe? Perhaps Dean Trevor Morrison is trapped in his own personal Groundhog Day and learned to make these himself. If so, withdrawn.

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If you check out the ceiling you can see they at least saved money phoning it in on the lights.

Saving that extra $25 at Walgreens should just about cover it.

Then there’s this:

That may look like something out of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, but it’s actually a woman hired to just stand there and crush grapes. BECAUSE IT’S WINE COUNTRY, ARE YOU GETTING THE THEME YET? The other guy is dressed as a train conductor holding a pocket watch and just yelled “All aboard!” because evidently we’re taking an imaginary train from the 1800s to the imaginary wine country.

Obviously there was an open wine and beer bar and, in addition to the cheese and shrimp in the pictures, guests could enjoy sushi, steak, salmon, caprese, and chocolates. There are 300+ faculty and staff at NYU, so that does take a lot of food and drink. But the school seems to have really dialed up the quality of the options before tossing the whole thing in the middle of an elaborate recreation of a middle-aged divorcée’s wet dream of a vacation.

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Again, not faulting anyone their party. I mean, part of me is happy my law school is doing so well for itself that it can afford nice things. The Thomas M. Cooley Faculty Holiday Party consisted of Ritz crackers, Schlitz, and pink slips.

I just want NYU to understand why I’m not returning that little card they sent me.

Earlier: NYU Law’s Secret Slush Funds
Senator Says Mean Law School Is Ignoring Him

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