Brunnée talks about her vision for the Faculty, her thoughts on accessibility to the legal profession, and her monthly morning breakfast event
On Thursday January 21, Dean Brunnée sat down with Ultra Vires to discuss her thoughts on community-building, accessibility, and inclusion. While the new name of the Dean-hosted monthly morning refreshment session remains uncertain, we gained some insight into Dean Brunnée’s vision for the law school.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
First and foremost, congratulations on the appointment! This is a pivotal time for our law school. This is not your first time in the Dean’s seat as you were Interim Dean in 2014. How is this role different?
The fact that I was interim Dean made the transition on January 1 easier because I wasn’t going into the complete unknown. I had a sense of what the Dean’s role entails and how the role differs from being a teacher and scholar. The main difference is as Interim Dean, you are the person who makes sure the institution carries on well. You are not someone who comes in with any vision of your own because you want the next Dean to make those kinds of choices.
I’ve been at the law school for 20 years, since 2000, and it has been the most amazing, rewarding, and energizing time in my professional life so far. It is a privilege to work in a place where you are surrounded by people who do such a diverse range of things, bring out different perspectives and ideas, and are leaders in their fields. Then of course, there are the students, who are not only eager to learn but actually push your thinking forward — that has happened to me a lot at U of T. The bottom line is that I care about the Faculty and I think it was a natural progression for me from scholar and teacher to see what I can do for everybody to make us even better.
The main difference between an Interim Dean and the “real deal” is that you come in with ideas about what you want to do for the Faculty. Can you talk about your vision for the Faculty?
We are living in a time when crises are converging: climate change, health, and inequality. For us as an institution, this also brings us opportunities. I hope that as we come out of the pandemic, the Faculty will be ready to position itself as a hub for cross-category thinking about current issues. I think we are well-placed to do this. Besides having such broad-based expertise in the faculty, we are located in a diverse and vibrant city within a country that still has relatively healthy institutions.
If I had to give you bullet points of what I want to do, the first thing relates to community. It is hard to build community in this strange world, but that means it is more important to find ways to engage in community-building and communication. For the first few weeks, I am talking to people. I have started talking to all of my colleagues and I will start conversations shortly with different segments of the student population, including the equity-facing groups, other clubs, and graduate students. The idea is to listen to people’s concerns and what suggestions they might have.
My second focus will be on inclusive excellence. I aim to continue the current work in enhancing the diversity of our student body. Increasing the diversity among the faculty ranks is a longer-term proposition, but it is certainly on my radar. I also plan on continuing the work on our curriculum that addresses reconciliation and anti-racism. This is what I envisage under the banner of inclusive excellence, but I am certainly interested in having conversations about the bigger, more systemic issues at the law school. For now, I am listening to different stakeholders to help the Faculty push forward in terms of intellectual leadership and engagement.
The cost of excellence seems to exist in tension with accessibility. Despite the Campaign for Excellence Without Barriers, a criticism of our financial aid program is that it is a band-aid solution to a structural issue. While tuition is a complicated discussion with constraints from the University and the Province, what is your stance on financial aid and tuition, considering the 10% tuition freeze is expected to lift later this year?
You are absolutely right, the issue is complex and what the Faculty can actually do is embedded in a much larger context. The main thing I can say right now is that accessibility and financial aid will remain priorities for the Faculty. Beyond that, I cannot say much because we do not know where the government is going. At the moment, we just don’t know. I understand these are key issues that are obvious concerns to students and other community members, and I am very serious about thinking about how to best tackle them.
Law school is a barrier to enter the legal profession. What do you think the role of law schools is in improving access to the practice of law for those from historically disadvantaged backgrounds? Financial aid is not the whole picture; what role do you think the Faculty has in not only recruiting students from diverse backgrounds, but also ensuring their success here in law school and beyond?
The Faculty does have an important part to play and I think that is reflected in the variety of initiatives that the Faculty has engaged in. Law in Action Within Schools (LAWS), for example, creates opportunities for young people to imagine pursuing a career in law. Once students are here, there needs to be support for them. Onwards, I think that’s where mentoring by alumni comes in. The most recent example at the Faculty is Black Future Lawyers, which is a great program that we can consider expanding. The Faculty cannot single-handedly solve the issue, but we certainly have the influence and capacity to make a difference.
Going back to your point about supporting students while they are here, last year ILSA and SLS wrote a letter to call on the Faculty to respond to the TRC Call to Action #28: implementing a course in Aboriginal people and the law. There was a letter by a few equity-facing groups that called, in part, for a modified curriculum to reflect the legacy of colonialism and racism within the common law. What are your thoughts on these issues?
Those are both very important issues raised, and they are interrelated. I have already started conversations about these issues with colleagues and I am going to have them with the student groups you referred to. This is definitely something on my radar. We cannot just say “presto, we have a solution.” We want to be sure that what we do is actually the right thing and that it really works. Doing something that is not the right thing could be worse than doing something that takes a bit more time. To give you a more focused answer, this is definitely something that I am not only aware of, but that I am committed to working on. I have begun to have these conversations, but it will probably take time to figure out the right processes for putting all the pieces together.
In a post-pandemic world, we will be able to gather for breakfast together in the atrium again. Have you given any thought to what you will call your morning session?
[Laughs] I should have prepared a witty answer to this. I don’t yet, but when I do, I’ll let you know. Last time around, it was Brunnée’s crème brûlée melee or something, which frankly made no sense because nobody could pronounce it. I am open to suggestions, so bring them on. Luckily, I have a bit more time to think about it since we unfortunately cannot host them at the moment.
