Sharlot said he considers his greatest accomplishment at the law school to be the improvement of the curriculum and being able to implement a small class experience for every first-year student.
“The small class experience creates a closer bond between students and faculty, requires students to participate more than in traditional classes of 120 students and allows us to require them to do some writing which is then critiqued by the faculty member,” Sharlot said.
Sharlot received his bachelor’s degree in political science in 1958 from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and his LLB in 1962 from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he had served as associate editor of the school’s law review.
He became an associate professor at UT Austin in 1969 and became a professor in 1972. He was appointed interim dean of the law school in the spring of 1994 and was named dean in March 1995.