From the Archives: Dean Hogg Reflects on his time as Dean of Osgoode Hall Law School
Originally Published March 24, 2003
The Editors of Obiter Dicta join Osgoode Hall in mourning the passing of Dean Peter Hogg, who died February 4, 2020. We are republishing this interview as a tribute to his legacy at Osgoode.
Connor Campbell, Editor in Chief (Feb 7, 2020)
In the grand Jan Wong tradition, the Obiter recently went for lunch with outgoing Dean Peter Hogg. He had a quiche, and milk. We had a pasta salad and water, collectively. We would like to note that for the second time, Alexis nearly died in the course of an interview. Mysteriously choking on some water. (Those of you with great memories will recall that in our last long interview, the Dean fed Alexis nuts). Through the munching and noise of the faculty common room, we managed to discuss many of the major issues currently facing Osgoode; we gave the dean a chance to reflect on his time here both positively and critically, and we talked a bit about the future.
Maggie Loda (ML): We’ll start with some easy questions. What did you enjoy most about your time as Dean of Osgoode?
Dean Peter Hogg (DH): I find that a very hard question to answer. I think what has probably been the most enjoyable has been the interactions with students and faculty. Those interactions haven’t always been free of difficulty, but generally speaking they’ve been a source of pleasure. The other thing I’ve enjoyed immensely is having very significant interactions with the broader university. That is something you don’t have much chance to do as a professor. One more thing I have really enjoyed — I didn’t initially expect it to be enjoyable — is fundraising. You get to spend time with and talk to an audience that is usually quite passionate. About the same things you are.
ML: What was your proudest accomplishment as Dean?
DH. I really don’t know if there’s a single item I can identify. I’m very pleased with the way we built up information technology and made Osgoode the leader in that field. I’m also very proud of the advancement team that we’ve put together who now run our fundraising alumni affairs and communications on a professional basis with positive results (and getting better).
A really difficult issue when I became Dean was separating the law library from the university library system. Faculty Council had told the dean to do this but the central university refused. Eventually, this was accomplished. We haven’t seen much benefit yet, but some of the funds that are generated by the new tuition are getting directed to the library. So essentially, we will have more freedom to establish levels of service and acquisitions. And we have already been able to provide some services and extended hours that weren’t there before.
With the professional development program, we’ve put it in a new downtown location that has made it more accessible and given at the tools to engage in distance education. I’m also proud of some of curricular achievements: the writing requirement, professional ethics programs, and in the LLB we’re also starting to move into distance education.
AL. Now during your term. And face of nearly tripled. What are your reflections on this and on accessibility more generally?
DH. I really feel we didn’t have a lot of choice on the matter of tuition fees. We’ve really had to work to increase our resources to make up for university cutbacks. We want to keep our academic program first class. You can react to this in two ways. You can go down to the bare-bones law school which can be run much more cheaply or you can raise tuition.
Now we’re well advanced as you know in planning a study of the impacts of tuition hikes with four of Ontario’s other law deans. [University of Toronto Law Dean] Ron Daniels is not participating. The University of Toronto recently released a study on accessibility and I’ve read over it briefly. I wasn’t able to see any obvious flaws, but I understand that some concerns are being raised.
I don’t really think I have the expertise to be able to judge statistical data, so I’m trying to stay out of that debate. Certainly, however from our own statistics, it appears the number of applications and the rate of acceptance — none of that has declined since we raise tuition. And when you look at what people are actually paying, the neediest group at the law school is not paying tuition beyond $4500 due to tuition rebates.
I think that high tuition is going to be an unfortunate fact of life for students
Dean Peter Hogg
We also now have an endowment of just over $17 million, which generates revenue of about $850,000 per year for student financial aid. And we are holding back 30% of tuition increases — 38% of new tuition increases — for student financial aid. I think that high tuition is going to be an unfortunate fact of life for students because in the larger context healthcare is going to absorb such a large share of government funding that it seems to crowd out other priorities. At the same time,the number of students and universities increasing, so I think that students will be getting less public funding per capita.
AL. What didn’t you accomplish as dean that you would have liked to accomplish?
DH: What have I not done? I would have liked to increase the faculty complement, because we do have a very poor faculty ratio, and I did get — the university granted me — two additional faculty as a result of a change in the funding formula — they call it the “Fair Funding” formula. We haven’t been as successful in securing Canada research chairs as we would have liked. For a variety of reasons our candidates for that program fell apart. Faculty Council approved the policy of pursuing privately funded name chairs and directed me to raise money for them. It is required that you have about $2 million in order to establish one of these chairs. I’m on the track of one now but I’m disappointed we haven’t made it further earlier. I also thought we’d be further along in the plan to renovate and extend the building by now.
ML: What do you see is the role of students in the school and in particular in governance ?
DH: I think they should play a very active role in governance. I do think that generally speaking students have very principled and valid strategies towards the school and I value their input.
I think Osgoode’s structures have more student participation than any other school. I’ve heard of I don’t think it’s common to have students on the hiring committee or the tenure and promotion committee. We do both. But part of the reason for [my positive outlook on student involvement] is the people who have been elected as Student Caucus Chair and President of Legal and Lit. They have inevitably been very sensible, intelligent, and generally nice people.
I think that it’s a great newspaper. I have to say that; you’re interviewing me.
Dean Peter Hogg
AL: The Obiter has sometimes been hard on your administration and others in the law school notably your successor. How do you characterize the role of the Obiter?
DH: I think it’s appropriate that the Obiter should be a critic of the administration and of the Dean. I don’t always agree with the criticisms, but they serve a useful function. My only real gripe with the Obiter is where — and I can think of only one occasion — is where there are personal attacks on students — not on the Dean, that’s part of the job — on students for their personal beliefs. I think the Obiter needs to be very sensitive to the fact that we are a very diverse society and we don’t want some students to feel they are not welcome here. Sometimes the importance of that is forgotten by the Obiter, but basically I think that it’s a great newspaper [Laughs] I have to say that; you’re interviewing me.
ML: How would you characterize Osgoode’s relationship to York University?
DH: I think a lot of students in a lot of alumni want to draw a sharp distinction between Osgoode and York, and they feel it’s their attachment is to Osgoode and not to York.
In the case of the older alumni who graduated before 1969, they never came out to York. The attachment is to Osgoode. On. The other hand we are part of York University and we benefit in a lot of ways from this. Our library, for example, only built up after we came to York. I think [good relations with the universities] is a necessary part of being a great law school — we’ve benefited a lot from being a part of York. So I try to walk a balance of recognizing the history and traditions of Osgoode. I always make a point in anything I write or say “Osgoode Hall Law School of York University” to make it clear that we are part of York.
AL: Schulich in particular has been more aggressive about going out and pushing the university for what they want. Your approach has been more modest. Do you regret that at all? Would we have gotten more concessions out of York if we pushed harder?
DH: The major difference with Osgoode is that our faculty are not part of the York-wide faculty union. That makes it very easy for us to plan our curriculum without interference from the broader universities regulations. Schulich is part of the broader university faculty association. We are the only exception. In most other respects, we are in the same position as Shulich. There aren’t too many places where Schulich gets any kind of different arrangements than we do.
AL: Schulich has substantially more staff in the career services office and they have moved ahead with their building plan True some of this is due to more success and fundraising but certainly some of it comes from their aggressive approach?
DH: I have never made a detailed comparison, and I never realized they had such a large career services staff, but these are really about individual choices by each faculty. We could do that if we if that were our choice they made different choices and maybe they’ve made wiser choices, but I don’t think it has to do with having greater freedom from the rest of the university.
ML: What are your thoughts on the rash of recent violence in the pub What effect does this hat on the school environment and what can we do
DH: My first reaction to the two violent incidents in relation to the pub — my first idea — was that we should move to shorter hours, but I gather that nobody agrees with me. [Laughs] I haven’t done anything about that. The report has been filed with the LCBO, although they haven’t given us any indication that they intend to do an investigation. The police have filed charges arising out of the first incident and a complaint has been made for internal discipline which we will deal with. I think we may well have to consider tighter regulation of the pub, whatever the LCBO says. Whether it involves shorter hours, I don’t know, but I’m very concerned about it. I will be discussing this with the Pub Manager
AL: Recently, the opener address rising student concerns about career services. How does the administration react to these ?
DH: I do have some ideas which I’ve discussed with Patrick Monahan, but I have not yet had the opportunity to discuss them with Wendy Griesdorf. We will definitely react to the Obiter article.
AL: What are your thoughts on this recently exposed case of a student who is? Thick one hour into an exam and has been told they will be denied an appeal and a petition?
ML: Especially in this job market a D+ can be a serious problem?
DH: Of course, you have to remember that employers are not unreasonable and an anomalous grade or even a semester that is explained by something like that would be discounted. So I wouldn’t overestimate the impact of such an event but the rules that are established have changed very little since 1969. The philosophy then was that if the student has passed what did they have to complain about? That is a little unrealistic today when your grades are central to the examination process.
But I don’t know what the answer is If we allowed everybody who is impaired or disadvantaged by some event in an examination to appeal or petition the floodgates would open. That’s not an answer because I fully recognize the concern but I think part of what we have to say is that accidents affect all of us from time to time whether law school, in undergraduate studies, wherever. It happens to everybody and potential employers recognize this.
AL: Wouldn’t it just be a matter of building in some level of discretion for the associate dean and exceptional circumstances?
DH: It might well be that you’re right. I think we need to define the kind of situations where this would apply Certainly I think being ill midway through an exam would qualify.
AL: A lot of students complain about the quality of student washrooms. It’s a pretty minimal complaint but only takes a little bit of work to correct it. Why are they still a problem? How do we fix this?
DH: I don’t know. This is frustrating to me — facilities, security, cleaning are all handled by the central university. I can’t tell you how often I’ve complained about this, and been assured that improvements would be made. And I agree with you.
When I go into the men’s washroom, I’m shocked. It’s dirty. There’s paper all over the floor. Assistant Dean (Administration & Planning) Ross Irwin has been trying to get this improved. It’s part of a larger set of issues related to security and facilities that we are very upset about. I think the only solution — now that I’m dreaming in Technicolor — is that we take over the management of facilities in the building.
Here’s an example of where Schulich is treated differently; I understand they are going to take over the management of facilities in their new building, once it is completed. If that is true that may be a precedent we can build on.
AL: Osgoode has recently embarked on a curriculum review, which you quite vocally opposed. What were some of the reasons for your opposition? Can it be fixed?
DH: I wasn’t opposed to Curriculum Review. I just felt that the structure should be postponed until the new Dean was appointed. I think one thing about curriculum reviews is that they don’t achieve much in the way of actual change.
That’s been true of the two we’ve had so far — but that doesn’t mean. It will be true of the next one. I did not want — when I started — to be bound by such a long-term review because I wanted to develop a plan for the law school that covered not just the curriculum, but the library, the faculty etc.; the whole ball of wax. Furthermore, I wanted to keep control over it — while I consulted very widely, I wanted to be the one who wrote it. A comprehensive Curriculum Review would not have been favorable for me at the beginning of my tenure and so my concern [in December] was that this might impact the next Dean. But regardless, the review will now take place, and Patrick Monahan is happy with that.
AL: We’ve been running an increasing deficit at Osgoode and at the same time we’ve expanded the administration, some of which has had a revenue impact, but we’re spending some of the funds — such as $800,000 in IT — that have a significant cost impact. How do we get back on track?
DH: There is a plan that was discussed as part of the tuition increase which will retire the debt over a three-year period. We first established the plan for the law school two of the proposals put forward were that we go to the leading edge of IT. And second that we bring up our advancement capability.
We did both of those things, after which the university started to impose cuts on the faculties including us. Our choice then was to either back off of the commitments we had already made (without knowing the cuts were coming) or to run a deficit. We decided not to take the cuts, but to run a deficit as part of the tuition increase — you remember — getting rid of the cuts was one of the major elements of the increase. When you look at it the students today are getting pretty much what they would have gotten anyway. Had we known about the cuts earlier we might have chosen differently but having embarked on a path where people had already been hired. I think we made the right decision.
ML: I wonder if we could talk a bit about the faculty accountability. We have it as good some brilliant area academics who are not very good teachers. The other student concerns with teaching is that we have very good teachers, who teach small seminars while core courses are taught by practitioners and other adjunct faculty. What are your reflections on this situation?
DH: Business associations is a good example. We have very strong faculty members in this area but two of them are away in parental leave. So that has created difficulty until Poonam Puri and Mary Condon come back. As for the Estates area, in which I teach, we have been trying to hire in that area, but we haven’t been successful.
Some of the gaps we mentioned I am equally concerned about. We would like to have a heavy presence of full-time faculty in the core courses. We’ve never wholly achieved that. I look at teaching evaluations each year as does the Associate Dean — we speak to faculty who get weak evaluations, and try and plan alternatives. We discontinue hiring adjunct faculty who tend to get poor evaluations. Generally speaking we do try to have the most full-time faculty members teaching at least one large class in their area of interest. I recognize though that there are still a few full-time faculty members who don’t teach large courses in their area.
As for accountability, we now have as part of our faculty salaries criteria a merit component that reward faculty for what they’ve done. It’s the same as the three categories used for Tenure & Promotion: teaching, research, and service.
There may be exceptions where someone is so excellent at research that we can set aside other concerns. But I don’t agree with you that teaching is sidelined. It’s as important as research and more important than service.
Dean Peter Hogg
AL: Fair enough, but we’ve heard that Osgoode’s Tenure & Promotions process sidelines the importance of teaching in favour of research excellence and service to the community.
DH: I don’t accept that. In the Tenure & Promotion process we have three students on the committee — those students produce reports on the teaching of the faculty members — it’s a separate report filed by the students and without exception. I believe these students have reported in favour of the faculty member.
I do not believe the faculty would promote a person if there were an unfavorable teaching report. There may be exceptions where someone is so excellent at research that we can set aside other concerns. But I don’t agree with you that teaching is sidelined. It’s as important as research and more important than service.
Teaching is very important, but it shouldn’t be put to the exclusion of research and service. That said, because the student reports have always been favorable we haven’t yet had to face this.
ML. What are your thoughts on your successor? Patrick Monahan.
DH: I think he’s just an outstanding person. I’ve known him since he was a student, but we’ve also become friends, and in just this year, since he’s become Associate Dean and we’ve worked together closely in a way we never would have before. He’s very imaginative, has good ideas, and he’s a strong person. I think it’s a combination that will work very well as Dean.
AL: Was Patrick Monahan’s appointment to associate Dean at all motivated by succession planning?
DH: When Shelley Gavigan’s term was due to come to an end. I canvassed the faculty for volunteers for her successor and the only person to volunteer at that point was Patrick Monahan. When Shelly Gavigan then decided to stay on another year, I told Patrick that if he still wanted to do it a year later he could. And I think it was back in my mind that it would be useful — I had no idea whether he was interested in becoming Dean but I hope he would — and I did have it in the back of my mind that it would be a helpful introductory role.
We don’t have any history at all of Associate Deans becoming Deans — I never served as an Associate Dean, nor did my predecessor Marilyn Pilkington, so there’s no real connection between the two. I think it is true that the Associate Dean job is a useful window into the kind of role that being Dean is.
However, I want to be clear that Patrick is very much his own man and he wouldn’t feel the least bit constrained about departing from things I have done. I don’t think you need to worry about that at all.
AL: What were your impressions of the other decanal candidates?
DH: I’m not sure I can say very much about this. I didn’t go to any of their presentations and while I had a small one-hour meeting with them, I generally stayed out of the process. So I’m not sure it’s appropriate for me to say too much. I will say that I like them all very much — well, I knew Tom Johnson quite well already. We’re friends. Beyond that I think it not best to answer the question. I didn’t have in front of me nearly the level of information that the Search Committee did.
ML: People have mentioned court appointments as a possibility for your future. Are you planning an easy retirement or what other plans do you have? What’s next for you?
DH: I do have to retire from the University at the end of next year, because I turn 65 in 12 months and you have to return. The end of the year in which you turn 65. But the next year in the year following I plan to continue writing work — I plan to do a new edition of the Constitutional Law book and I have some other writing projects. I won’t teach next year, but the following year I plan to pick up some teaching. I’m not entitled to teach of course because I will retired, but if the dean will have me, I will teach. I won’t take a court appointment of any sort — I don’t want that
ML: I think we all kind of hoped you would end up on the Supreme Court.
DH: Well, I’m sorry to disappoint. [Laughs] I don’t think there are any vacancies right now, anyway.