Alex Carmona (3L)
Way back in the good ol’ days of September of 2013, when oil prices were high and Donald Trump was just a TV celebrity instead of a worryingly Kim Jong Un-y spectre of populism gone awry, a naïve, optimistic 1L with exactly one week of law school experience wrote an article for Ultra Vires reflecting on his status as a “Transition Space native.” In this column, said author (me), wrote some reasonable stuff about how it’s hard to miss something you never had (the old buildings, which have now all but faded from institutional memory, save in the foggy minds of some wizened 4Ls), and some utterly ridiculous nonsense about the law school community forging a better relationship with the undergrads (I know, fuck them, right?).
It has since been over two years, and us 3Ls have finally been saddled with the definitive, not at all surprising news in a cheerful email from the Dean Yak that no, we will not move into the new building before we graduate. Not for the last few months of our last semester. Not for exams. Never (although, as a fun twist, we may have to hike across the street to Jackman to use the library soon). With the final nail in the coffin of any wild rumours about a pre-summer move, now is as good a time as any to examine the legacy of our time at the venerable Victoria College.
Its important to recognize that when we as 0Ls were making our decisions about which specific law school we wanted to be the one to beat any notions of using our degrees to “help people” out of us, we were fully informed of the situation. We were told the old buildings would be closed at the start of our first year, that we’d be going to class at Vic, and that we would be moving into the brand-spankin’ new Jackman Hall in 3L. But of course, we didn’t really believe them. Two years to get tree cutting permits and build a massive new building? Clearly a fiction. But it was a convenient fiction, kind of like when your Tinder match responds after a three-day delay with “sorry, I was in the shower” and you play just along because, come one, what the hell else are you gonna do? We played along because we wanted to go to U of T Law, for all of the reasons that had nothing to do with quality of lodgings—the faculty, employment statistics, not having to live in a crappy town, yadda yadda yadda. I think the law school ultimately delivered on those points. We continue to slay in the OCI and articling hires, many of the profs are geniuses regardless of whether they’re teaching in Flavelle, Jackman or some basement in Emmanuel College, and we aren’t in Windsor.
But there’s a caveat. When it comes to the overall story of our illustrious institution, the three years spent at Vic will just be a small blip in the long history of U of T Law. What really matters to the administration, and rightly so, is getting the new building squared off right. Unfortunately, that pretty clearly resulted in an administration that, for our cohort’s entire time at U of T Law, has been in future planning mode. From small things like banning this year’s Law Games team from obtaining outside sponsorship so all donations to U of T Law go toward the building fund, to larger concerns like the ever-present tuition debate, the administration has made our cohort’s experience at the law school less of a priority than would have been the case had they not Jackman Hall on their plate. It’s not anything to blame the administration for—it was just an unfortunate circumstance for us that this massive project was undertaken by the Faculty during our stint here. Soon we’ll be gone, Jackman Hall will open, and the administration will be better placed to prioritize the current student experience. In four year’s time, not a single student at the school will even remember the Transition Space—but for the 2016 class, that’s all we’ll remember of U of T Law. And while I’m sure our memories will be mostly fond ones, I don’t think I’m alone in saying Transition Space will leave a subtle tinge of bitterness.
