Fall 2021 Planning

Dear Windsor Law Class of 2024,

 

I want to share how excited we are to be welcoming you to the Windsor Law community. Your future is bright and we are privileged to be guiding and supporting you through your law school journey. 

 

Following my July 13 update to upper year students, many of you had questions pertaining to your first-year classes, particularly about the mode of course delivery. As you know, fall will be conducted primarily online.  But, we want to give those who prefer some in-person study the opportunity to do so as a way of easing back into the winter term.  The following classes are available for you to elect to attend either in-person or online this fall:

Instructions on how to enrol for either option have been shared with you by Assistant Dean Herlehy in your most recent weekly Friday update. All other fall courses will be online. 

 

As for the winter term, subject to the direction of the University of Windsor’s central administration and public health agencies, all first-year classes will be delivered in-person. 

 

While further details will be shared with our broader Windsor Law community in the coming weeks, I wanted to share this news with you directly as you receive your schedules for the fall and begin to plan accordingly for the academic year ahead.  We understand that different members of our community are navigating different circumstances and have different needs. Some may choose to come to Windsor in the fall, others may wait until winter and others may commute to campus.  Some may need accommodation for medical reasons or other similarly pressing, unavoidable reasons.  For those who do require accommodation for the winter term, details will be communicated as soon as they become available. 

 

For those of you who will be in Windsor this September, we encourage you to take advantage of the beautiful outdoor community spaces that Windsor has to offer. I invite you to join me on a new initiative to connect with and welcome you. I will spend most Friday afternoons taking a short health-break by walking along the river and I invite you to join me.  This is my first term as Dean and the first time that I have not been in a classroom for almost two decades.  Walking together along the river in small groups will grant us the opportunity to get to know one another outside of the classroom and campus.  

 

Thank you for your patience while we worked through the details of ensuring we do our absolute best to protect your safety and wellbeing while providing you with the absolute best legal education this school year ahead and beyond.  

 

For more information about housing, visit the UWindsor Off-Campus Housing website. 

For more information about fall and winter term schedule, reach out to Assistant Dean (Student Services), Francine Herlehy via email: francine.herlehy@uwindsor.ca

 

Sincerely,

Reem Bahdi
Dean of Law

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June 2, 2021

Dear Students,

Further to former Dean Waters’ message of March 26 (below), I am writing today with a further update regarding our plans for Fall 2021.  As has been previously communicated, our first priority continues to be the health and safety of our students, faculty and staff. As such, no student will be required to attend campus during the Fall 2021 term for courses or assessments.  We do, however, understand that many of you want something other than a fully online law school experience, so we plan to provide every student with the option to attend one course in person and on campus. 

The following courses will be available for in-person/hyflex delivery in Fall 2021:

We have secured teaching space on campus that ensures that we can adhere to current public health requirements, including social distancing requirements and public health requirements pertaining to transition time between classes (to allow for proper air circulation, airflow and surface disinfection) and between rooms (to allow for proper on-campus student classroom transitions in light of distancing requirements). We are currently in the process of confirming classrooms for the above-referenced Fall 2021 offerings.

For upper-year students, as you plan for registration, you will see the course details, including scheduling, in UWinsite Student. 

The above-referenced courses will remain accessible, in an online delivery format, to all students who are unable, for any reason, to attend in person. Furthermore, academic advisors will be available for both students and faculty, to ensure that these hyflex courses are delivered as effectively and accessibly as possible for all students, in-person and online. Of course, if circumstances permit, we will explore ways to make more courses available in this in-person/hyflex model for the Fall 2021 term. 

In addition to classroom space, we also have dedicated student space in the CAW Centre (The Hum Lounge) and the Leddy Library, and we have reserved meeting spaces on campus to allow for small gatherings/meetings, again, in line with public health recommendations. Despite these challenging and continuously changing circumstances we are all facing, we remain committed to providing those students seeking a robust and varied on-campus experience with as many options as public health measures allow, for a meaningful, in-person student experience during the Fall 2021 term.

With yesterday’s message from President Gordon, that employees will be working towards a gradual return to campus and working towards the complete resumption of face-to-face services, we continue to provide academic advising and student support services virtually through the Student Services Office (lawstudentservices@uwindsor.ca).  

For information about modes of instruction for our graduate courses, please contact the Associate Dean (Research & Graduate Studies) at adrlaw@uwindsor.ca. 

The planning for Winter 2022 is still ongoing and we await further details from the central administration about these plans. Once more information becomes available regarding the Winter 2022 term, it will be linked to our COVID-19 Updates webpage. As always, we welcome your feedback as we all attempt to move forward and navigate these unprecedented times as a Windsor Law community. For any questions or concerns, you can reach out to Meagan Haugh, Special Projects Coordinator to the Deans of Law at Meagan.Haugh@uwindsor.ca. 

We will all get through this together.

Dr. Beverly Jacobs, CM
Acting Dean of Law

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March 26, 2021

Dear Students,

As you know, the University has indicated “we are planning a safe and measured return to face-to-face programming and on-campus activities in Fall ’21, with a mix of face-to-face, hybrid, and online courses.” I am writing to update you on what planning for this is taking place at the Faculty of Law level.

First, let me say that – as has been the case to date- the health and safety of students, faculty and staff will continue to be prioritized. Not all students/faculty/staff will be vaccinated by the start of September, and public health regulations will still involve physical distancing and room load limitations that restrict the campus stock of available classrooms. Further, members of our law school community may, among other things, be immunocompromised or have family responsibilities that prevent them from attending in-person classes. It is also possible that students will test positive for COVID during the term and will need to keep up with coursework while in quarantine. In light of these factors, the Fall term at the Faculty will be primarily online in terms of courses. No law student will be required to attend campus during the Fall term for courses or assessments.

At the same time, I recognize that many of you wish to return to campus and that a purely online law school experience can have academic, social and mental health ramifications. We would like to ensure that every student has the option to have some face-to-face curricular component to enrich the student experience. At this point, we are planning for at least one course in each year of the program to have in-person/hybrid and online options. These courses (details forthcoming) will be one or more of the mandatory courses in both the single and dual JD programs. For any in-person/hybrid classes, we will be enhancing technology in the classrooms and ensuring that technical support for instructors is in place.

Of course, law school/university is more than what goes on in classrooms, and I hope many of you will return to campus in the Fall. We are actively planning to provide opportunities for students to have on-campus experiences for those who wish to have them, subject of course to public health regulations in place at the time. Where feasible, these will be in a hybrid format of in-person and online. Although we are temporarily out of our home in the Ianni Building, we have secured excellent dedicated law student spaces in the CAW Centre and the Law Library (which will be housed in the Leddy Library).

At this point, we have not received direction on the Winter term and planning for that term has not fully commenced. I recognize that many of you have concerns about the continuity of mode of delivery between the semesters in terms of housing, accessibility and student safety. These concerns will be addressed as planning for the full academic year continues and additional consultation with students -including students with disabilities- will be undertaken.

To say the public health situation remains fluid is to state the obvious, but further updates will be sent to you from the Law Faculty and the University in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, please feel free to provide feedback and address any thoughts or questions you may have on planning for the next academic year to our Special Projects Coordinator, Meagan Haugh so that these can be brought to the attention of the Acting Dean and Associate Dean (Academic) prior to the next law school update. Finally, I would like to thank the SLS for passing on the results of the survey it conducted of student views and wish you all the best at this busy time of year.

Dr. Christopher Waters
Former Dean of Law

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Visit Law's Winter 2022 Planning website

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