Moving into a new apartment can be stressful and complicated by decisions regarding where to place certain furniture or how best to setup your bedroom. Moving an entire school can be even more complicated. This year, the SLS has been consulting with the faculty and administration regarding the new building and the transition space of Victoria College. The Building Consultation Committee consists of members from the administration, both sides of the SLS (Social Affairs and Student Affairs and Governance) as well as representatives from the Graduate Law Students’ Association (GLSA).
The Committee has been meeting every few weeks since last summer, and has discussed everything from where students are going to get coffee and how many plugs per room are the right number to what a Moot Court Room should look like and how much room the Journals need for their offices.
Through all of our meetings, one message has been clear: we have a say in what’s going to happen. The administration wants, and needs, student feedback about how the transitional space will be used and about what is needed in the new building. At this stage of the “big move”, there are many decisions about tradeoffs that will need to be made about the transition space. For instance:
What rooms in the transition space would be best used as a lounge or as a study room?
How should we setup the reading space in the reading room: large desks alone or should we add some study carrels?
Then there are important logistical questions:
How many law students will it take to move Bora’s Head?
How will we keep other university students from stealing Mayo’s Muffins at Muffin Madness?
The answers to these questions are sometimes quite easy (clearly, Professor Alarie can move Bora’s head by himself, and we’ll just ID everyone at Muffin Madness). Sometimes the questions are harder, and the answers more difficult. In all seriousness, your law school community experience depends on us identifying what makes it count for you – so we can do our best to find adequate alternatives while we all go through the transition years. We are doing our best to answer as many questions as we can, but we can’t do it alone.
To this end, from Wednesday, January 30 until Friday, February 5, the Building Consultation Committee will be administering a survey to gain some insight into student needs and wants. The survey will be administered both online (you will receive a listserv message) as well as in person in the Rowell room during lunch hour.
Take a moment this week to fill out the survey and give us your thoughts.
If you have any questions or concerns, or would like to provide further feedback, please email the SLS at [email protected].
