LORNE SOSSON
<Dean>
Welcome to Osgoode for what promises to be a remarkable year!
You will be on hand for (and, I hope, will help shape) a range of “firsts” for Osgoode. For example, this year we welcome Osgoode’s first “Artist in Residence,” Cindy Blazevic, who will be leading a course built around photographic essays of the closure of the Kingston Penitentiary. We look forward to the completion of Charles (Ya’Ya) Heit’s signature indigenous carvings, which will transform the former “mixing area” between Gowlings Hall and the Classroom wing of the new Osgoode building. We welcome two academic stars who joined Osgoode’s faculty in July 2013, Professor Philip Girard and Professor Cynthia Williams. In addition, our teaching and research program for this year will be enriched by a host of visitors, including Professors James Allan, Fay Faraday, and Jennifer Nadler, Osgoode Catalyst Fellowship holder Amar Bhatia, Lewtas Visiting Professor Ronalda Murphy, McMurtry Visiting Clinical Fellowship holders Ronda Bessner, Jeffery Hewitt, Mark Freiman, and David Lepofsky, and Genest Global Faculty Victor Nabhan, Peter Fitzpatrick, and Isabel Karpin.
And, the Class of 2016 has much else to look forward to in the years to come as well – among other highlights over the next three years, you will be among the first Osgoode students to arrive at York by subway (scheduled to open in 2015)!
Osgoode’s 2011-2016 Strategic Plan, “Experience Osgoode,” which was unanimously adopted by Faculty Council, represents a bold roadmap for the future.
For students, the Plan highlights the importance of experiential learning, community engagement, accessible legal education, and undertaking research which helps shape public debate.
Beginning with the Class of 2015, every Osgoode student will complete an experiential component as part of the J.D. Program.
Last year, to support this new curriculum, we launched the Office of Experiential Education. The first of its kind in Canada, this Office provides a centre of gravity for Osgoode’s diverse experiential programs. Kim Bonnar (’09) returned to Osgoode to lead this Office, alongside her leadership role in the Career Development Office.
Experiential learning takes seriously the entire student experience, not just what happens in a classroom or clinic, or what gets graded and assessed. For this reason, Osgoode has also added its first-ever Counsellor and Wellness Officer. Melanie Goela (’03) returned to Osgoode last year to provide students with her expertise, resources, and support. We also have arranged with York University’s Counselling & Disability Supports (CDS) enhanced access to mental health services for Osgoode students. This year, Osgoode’s commitment to inclusion and experiential education will come together as we launch the Disability Intensive Program, led by CLASP Clinic Director Marian McGregor and Professor Roxanne Mykitiuk, in collaboration with ARCH, a legal aid clinic specializing in disability rights.
While accessibility, experiential education, and deepening the culture of research at Osgoode continue to be priorities, the aspect of the Strategic Plan on which we will focus for the coming year is digital legal education. The digital transformation has the potential to affect every aspect of the Law School, from recruitment and admissions, to student services and alumni relations, from the curriculum to pedagogy, from the conduct of research to the dissemination of scholarship. Under the banner, Osgoode’s Digital Initiative, we will chart an ambitious path forward, and we are keen for your ideas. You can read the background document, check out the resources that will inform our discussion and share your own thoughts on the Osgoode Digital Initiative Moodle site. You can access the site by clicking the link on the MyOsgoode student portal homepage and entering the following enrolment key once you login to Moodle: Ozdigital13/14.
While we focus on a bold future, we also continue to explore and celebrate our rich history.
This Fall, we will mark the occasion of the 20th Anniversary of the Intensive Program in Aboriginal Lands, Resources & Government with an exhibit in the Osgoode: Then and Now niche and an event as part of the Indigenous Bar Association’s Annual Conference to be held this year at Rama, Ontario. We will also be unveiling a birthday video as we get ready to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the founding of Osgoode Hall Law School in 2014.
Looking back and looking forward, the bonds that tie together the Osgoode community continue to resonate – especially the desire to see law as a journey to justice. Your years at Osgoode will be shaped by continuity and change. Ultimately, however, your law school experience will be what you make of it. I hope it provides for you the same wealth of opportunity, challenge, support, and sense of purpose that it has provided and continues to provide for me.
For updates on my take on life at Osgoode, including an elaboration of some of the themes touched on here, please check out my blog at http://deansblog.osgoode.yorku.ca/ or follow my Twitter feed @DeanSossin