Outgoing SLS President shares thoughts on the SLS’ successes from the 2021–22 year
On behalf of the Students’ Law Society (SLS), I want to offer my congratulations to everyone for making it to the end of the year! Although it has been a busy and challenging time, I also want to thank everyone who helped our community get through another pandemic year of law school.
In September, we hoped that the term would look more like 2019 than 2020. Despite the continuing challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic presented, during both hybrid and online phases of this year, students managed to achieve many successes in a variety of areas; I want to share just a few of the SLS team’s achievements here.
In the fall, I shared several priorities for the Student Life and Academic Committee (SLAC) and the Social and Finance Committee (SFC). SLAC has worked tirelessly to spot and address pandemic-related issues. Advocating for clearer and more timely communications regarding the pandemic, working microphones in classrooms, improving the Red Screen Accommodations process, and more, were significant parts of SLAC’s efforts to help blunt the rough edges of pandemic-related measures.
SLAC members and appointed students have opened a dialogue with the Faculty about the future of tuition and address the unsustainable trends of drastic increases, as laid out in SLS’ letter to Dean Brunnée regarding tuition. Next year’s SLS will have the opportunity to build on the concerns shared and foundations laid at the Tuition Roundtable discussions.
After coordinating efforts with the Indigenous Law Students’ Association (ILSA) regarding implementing a mandatory course in response to Call to Action #28, a plan for a mandatory course went to Faculty Council on March 30. I hope next year’s student leaders on the SLS and ILSA will continue to collaborate to ensure the Faculty’s response to #28 is comprehensive and done in a good way.
In addition to these advocacy priorities, the SLS has worked to address other significant student concerns. After continuously hearing from students about the need for recorded lectures, SLAC’s advocacy resulted in recorded lectures becoming available as an accommodation where instructors are permitted to record and distribute lectures at their will. The SLS also secured a policy change that opens the door for digital access to notes during open-book examinations. Both of these policy changes are significant steps, and next year’s SLS will want to ensure that they are properly implemented. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, while the SLS’ advocacy has not managed to reopen the Goodmans LLP Café, the SLS secured free coffee and treat days from the Faculty.
SFC also had many successes, despite the significant planning challenges posed by pandemic restrictions. Upper-year students returning to the Jackman Law Building in the fall were greeted with pizza, trivia, and various social events as part of the Upper Year Welcome Back week. SFC also held trivia throughout the year, even during the Omicron wave, offering students a chance to show off their knowledge in a way that brought glory rather than eye rolls. The SLS was also able to bring back two major evening events that are the highlights of the year for some students—the HalLAWeen party and the triumphant return of Law Ball.
The pandemic has severely affected another key student life component: clubs. For the remaining minority of us who experienced the law school before the pandemic, we fondly remember seeing free snacks and pizza on a regular, if not daily, basis at club events. While we were not able to revive that tradition this year, SFC has overhauled its club funding policy and processes to provide more information to students, and has set itself up to fund clubs at even greater levels than pre-pandemic.
Thanks to the successful SLS Membership Fee Increase Referendum, the SLS will have more money to help rebuild the vibrant network of clubs next year and renormalize free pizza being a fixture of law school life. With the first fee increase since at least 1995, SFC will be able to have the cash flow and revenue to sustainably fund clubs and host numerous diverse events.
SLAC and SFC worked together to support students through the recruits—SFC organized a panel and mentorship program for the 2L recruit last summer, and SLAC repeatedly brought recruit-related issues and stressors related to communications, supports, and experiences to various branches of the Faculty.
While the SLS has worked to increase transparency by building out our website; refining our governing documents, minutes, and budget and making them available for students; and providing updates on advocacy issues in the SLS Weekly, the school year’s quick pace sometimes obscures the scale of the SLS’ activities.
I want to deeply thank the 41 SLS representatives, officers, and execs I had the pleasure of working with this past year. These dedicated students have helped make our law school community a better place by attending 24 SLAC meetings, 25 SFC meetings, 20 Executive Committee meetings, and 20 Dean or Admin meetings while serving on 21 SLS sub-committees and 11 Dean’s/Faculty Council Committees.
The successes highlighted here represent a mere fraction of the more than 70 distinct projects, events, and advocacy initiatives championed by the SLS this year. I want to especially thank SLS Vice-Presidents Ellie Hirst (2L), Marco Ciccone (1L), Thryn Irwin (3L), and Vanshika Dhawan (3L) for their great efforts in co-ordinating these projects.
Our community is full of passionate advocates, colleagues, and friends. I will end by encouraging students, faculty, staff, and the Faculty itself to take up one of the recommendations from this year’s Mental Health and Wellness Committee Report: work together to embed compassion into the culture here at U of T Law—kindness and care for each other will help unlock our student body’s greatest potential.
It’s been an honour to have your trust and to serve our community over the past three years, hopefully helping to make this place at least a little bit better along the way. I very much look forward to passing the torch to Meaza Damte (2L) and her incoming team to continue to fight the good fight in hopefully more precedented times next year.
Editor’s Note: Willem Crispin-Frei (3L) is the outgoing President of the Students’ Law Society.
