Professor Jasminka Kalajdzic teaching class at Windsor Law
Thanks to video conferencing technology and a unique collaboration between Windsor Law’s Professor Jasminka Kalajdzic, Stanford Law’s Deborah Hensler, and Tilburg University’s Ianika Tzankova, Windsor Law students had the opportunity to learn about class action regimes in Canada, the U.S., the Netherlands and Germany, and to engage with students in each jurisdiction — all without leaving Windsor.
Planning for the collaboration began in 2013 and a three-class module was tested in 2014. In the fall of 2014, Kalajdzic and her teaching partners at Stanford and Tilburg rolled out the inaugural Comparative Collective Redress course. Students enrolled in Kalajdzic’s Class Action seminar and spent one hour a week for seven weeks “meeting” with their Dutch and American counterparts. Professors Hensler and Tzankova taught parts of the course relevant to their jurisdictions, and all three professors engaged in live discussions. Kalajdzic calls it, “comparative law in action.” Students at the three universities also had the opportunity to use social media and other platforms to engage with each other.
In 2016, the course was offered again, this time bringing a new partner school on board: Leuphana University in Germany, with Dr. Axel Halfmeier. The course will be taught a third time in the fall of 2017, and talks are underway to widen the collaboration to include other jurisdictions.
Technologies like video conferencing and social media provide practical mobility that allows students and faculty to globally connect with other knowledge institutions.
Windsor Law students have found the Comparative Collective Redress course to be immensely interesting and a fitting way to learn about the law and practices of other jurisdictions. In this way, students gain a deeper understanding of their own jurisdiction’s policies.
Kalajdzic says that while the unique teaching approach takes resources, IT assistance, and tremendous coordination, it works well, and it’s fun. “It opens doors that were previously inaccessible to us.”