DYLAN MCGUINTY
<Contributor>
Welcome to Osgoode! …And also to our community, to a new stage in your life, to the beginning of life-long friendships, to study groups and group work, the library and lectures, to new prescription glasses, and fond memories to keep.
At Osgoode, when you invest in yourself, the professors and staff honour your effort with their time and energy. If you participate in extracurriculars and student government, the experience enriches you. And when you invest in Osgoode after you graduate, you get a classroom named after you! The truth is, much will be expected of you at law school, but much can be expected in return.
“Legal and Lit” (as it is affectionately known) is here to help make law school a positive and transformative experience for everyone. You can join a club, start a club, or just focus on your studies – we are here to enhance your experience. Law school can be stressful, and it’s important that you remain aware that because it is a sizable investment for each of us, resources are available to support you. So when the going gets tough, tough it out together. Melanie Banka Goela, Osgoode’s first Student Success and Wellness Counsellor, provides support when pressures become particularly difficult – shoot her an email at mgoela@osgoode.yorku.ca. The Osgoode Peer Support Centre in the clubs area will also be launching its open-door drop-in sessions again this fall.
To deliver our mandate, Legal and Lit has many exciting activities and initiatives planned for the year. Our focus will be to continue in the tradition of our predecessors to build our law school community. We plan to do this with the following initiatives, but would like your input along the way:
1. Continuing the events that bring students together and create and strengthen friendships, including:
- The annual ski trip;
- Pub nights, including the JCR pub;
- The Dean’s Formal and 1L Informal;
- O-Week; and
- Intramural sports.
2. Encourage Clubs to Work Together
This year we will allow the 70-plus student clubs at Osgoode to share resources with each other while maintaining the strict accountability measures put in place last year. We will also create a central online calendar that clubs can use to collaboratively find dates to organize events that don’t conflict with each other; and create a database to which clubs can contribute ideas they are willing to pursue together.
3. Promote Student-Led Working Groups to Develop Policy Proposals
This year we are making funding available to clubs to organize policy working groups at Osgoode. These student-led, clubs-driven working groups will organize guest lectures and expert panels to explore policy issues that interest students and create policy proposals as well as legislative bills and amendments which they can disseminate to the public.
L&L will not dictate or approve policy proposals, but will create the forum for genuine discussion and advocacy.
4. Weekly Programming in the JCR
Legal and Lit will work with our bar manager, the one and only, the effervescent and energetic Zorn Pink, to organize weekly programming in the JCR to showcase Osgoode student talent as well as cultural and artistic expression.
We will also be organizing a number of outings to some of Toronto’s hippest joints and most posh places with the help of our very own Alex Payne, L&L’s Social Convenor. Why not take in a musical on your way to Pub Night?
5. Establish an Alumni Outreach Program within the Career Development Office
Last spring I met with Osgoode’s outstanding Manager of the Experiential Education at the Career Development Office, Kim Bonnar. Kim and her staff have been hard at work creating a database to help students find workplaces and practice areas through Osgoode alumni who are willing to offer mentorship to students.
6. Mental Health
This year’s O-Week leaders will be trained to be sensitive to the realities of mental health needs, as with all health needs. I will work with faculty over the coming year to advocate for the dissemination of information about mental health services to students. In addition, the Legal and Lit Equity Officer, Ebony Rose, is already busy organizing Mental Health Awareness Week and promoting open discussion around the pressures students face.
The members of the Legal and Lit executive are here to help out. Let us know what you think needs improvement, and what things are working well. Legal and Lit members will hold regular office hours and check their email daily. If you’ve got an idea, you’ve got an ear with L&L!
Have a terrific year!