Awards office announces $300,000 of endowed funds
Dean Edward Iacobucci opened the fifth Faculty Council meeting of the academic year by thanking all who attended Law Follies the week prior, joking, “for those of you who missed it, I am indeed bald and my father was indeed a Supreme Court Justice.”
Event attendance
Dean Iacobucci noted the Faculty’s disappointment with student turnout at recent events, including the Law and Economics Colloquium on February 11th. The Dean partially attributed the poor attendance to the event’s 4:00-5:45pm time slot, which conflicted with many classes.
The Dean also noted that the question-and-answer session with The Honourable Justices Rosalie Abella and Nicholas Kasirer on January 28th had a disappointing attendance, considering its lunch time slot and the high profile guests.* Dean Iacobucci said the Faculty must consider the effort put into events if few students are interested.
SLS TRC Teaching Award
Students’ Law Society (SLS) President Morgan Watkins (3L) announced an SLS partnership with the Indigenous Initiatives Office and the Indigenous Law Students’ Association to introduce a new teaching award. The new Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) teaching award seeks to recognize professors at the law school who have made outstanding contributions to the TRC of Canada’s Call to Action #28.
All JD students will be able to nominate a professor for the award and will vote for their preferred recipient in March. The award will be presented at convocation.
Student Choice Initiative update
SLS and Downtown Legal Services fees are once again mandatory this semester in the wake of the Ontario Divisional Court’s decision to strike down the Student Choice Initiative. The initiative, which was held to be outside the scope of provincial government power, permitted students to opt out of services deemed “non-essential.”
The Ontario government is currently appealing the decision. However, the University made the choice to make fees mandatory for the Winter semester.
GLSA Updates
Graduate Law Students’ Association (GLSA) vice-president Crystal Park (GPLLM) announced the GLSA’s Executive Roundtable program, which allows graduate students to discuss concerns and issues they face with professionals in the finance and technology sectors.
LAWS update
Law in Action Within Schools (LAWS) executive director Eleonora Dimitrova also gave an update on the program. LAWS supports high school students who face barriers to post-secondary education by providing exposure to legal issues. LAWS also uses legal education as a tool to encourage high school graduation and post-secondary education.
Last year, the program employed 2 full-time staff members and 8 law students as temporary summer staff. The program partnered with 8 different Toronto District School Board schools with an enrollment of 459 Core Program Students.
Over 1,000 students were involved in LAWS in some capacity. LAWS also placed 82 high school students in full-time volunteer work over the summer at legal clinics and law firms. Eight law firms participated in mentoring programs that mentored 131 students.
Dimitrova concluded by sharing a statement from a 1L student at Osgoode Hall Law School who is a LAWS alumni. The student shared how grateful she was for LAWS programming.
Sessional dates
Associate Dean, Curriculum and Research Albert Yoon revealed that classes for the 2020-2021 academic year are likely to begin on September 8th, 2020. Due to the later start of the term, the exam schedule will be more compressed and all first-year exams will be in one week.
To fit the 13 weeks of classes for first-year students mandated by the Law Society, first-year classes will finish by Thursday, December 10th. First-year final exams would then run December 14th-18th.
Yoon said the faculty is exploring the possibility of ending classes on Wednesday, December 9th to have an extra study day for first- year students, but that would require an additional deemed day of classes to be scheduled at a later date.
Yoon assured Faculty Council that this tight scheduling by the Records Office is manageable. The Faculty will also allow for individual responses from those concerned with their exam schedules. Legal Research and Writing will also be more uniform so that all first-year students are under the same time frame, noting that this year, different sections had varying deadlines. Legal Methods will also start one week later than its usual mid-August start.
Awards
Wasila Baset from the Awards Office announced seven new awards totalling $302,500 of new financial aid bursaries for the law school. As per the Boundless Promise Program, the University of Toronto will match the amount gifted, resulting in an impact of over $600,000 on financial aid.
*Editor’s Note: Law Events reports that 30 to 40 guests attended this event.
