Annual Report 2005-2006 - Osgoode Hall Law School - York ...

FACULTY & RESEARCH
Exchanges
As part of the responsibilities of the Associate Dean, the development of various ‘external relations’ has
become an important priority. Nevertheless, mindful of Osgoode’s budgetary situation, it is important that
strong emphasis is placed upon the goal of not only establishing a wide variety of exchange possibilities
for both undergraduate and postgraduate students, but also ensuring that the maintenance of such
exchanges results in an overall benefit to the School in terms of prestige and educational achievement.
Such exchanges draw upon a relatively large amount of institutional resources to develop and administer.
Accordingly, the challenge is to offer a wide range of exchange possibilities with prestigious foreign
universities and, at the same time, to be confident that the uptake is commensurable with the resources
required to run the programs.
The existing Academic Plan proposes that “students should not only be exposed to international
perspectives on their disciplines, but should have the opportunity to meet with foreign professors and
students at York, and to study abroad.” This objective is being achieved with a measure of success and
efforts are being made to enhance the quality and range of offerings. As well as offering a rich curriculum
in international studies in law, Osgoode maintains several exchange initiatives with foreign universities.
The uptake of these opportunities is limited, but not insignificant. In the academic year 2005-06, over 30
Osgoode students went on exchange last year and slightly more came to Osgoode on exchange.
Over the past year, significant headway has been made in extending the opportunities available to both
faculty and staff:
• The most significant achievement of the last year has been the signing of a companion agreement with
NYU to the joint LLB/JD program. This will put in place a joint LLB/LLM program in which Osgoode
students can obtain the joint degree after three years. Again, this initiative will require considerable
effort and innovation on the part of the relevant Law School staff, but there is a definite sense that this
program will have many spillover advantages for Osgoode students and faculty.
• Efforts and negotiations are in progress to extend these NYU-style agreements with other international
law schools.
• While there presently exists a small-scale exchange with the South-West Institute of Law and Political
Science in Chongching, China, there are plans to develop this initiative further. Both ODP and the
Graduate Program are exploring ways to extend the opportunities available for well-qualified Chinese
students to study at Osgoode and for Osgoode students to be part of a summer school in China.
Although this is a protracted and delicate process, we are hopeful of making good progress over the
next 12 months.
• The Montreal Exchange is well established. However, although there has been a relatively balanced
exchange of students between the two schools, there now appears to be less demand for Osgoode to go
to Montreal and more demand for Montreal students to come to Osgoode. We have taken steps to
correct this and to cap the number of Montreal students coming to Osgoode.
• The efforts to establish a summer school in Prato, with Monash University, has begun to pay
considerable dividends. In the opening year, six Osgoode students enrolled in the program and two
Osgoode faculty taught on the program. This year, with some modifications to recruiting and funding,
over 50 students showed an interest in the Prato Summer 2006 courses, with 31 finalizing their course
choices and attending. Administrative fees are $300 Australian; there is no tuition cost per course for
the students, but they are responsible for their flight and accommodation costs.
22 OSGOODE HALL LAW SCHOOL