A Message to the Ontario Government In addition to taking to task Laurentian’s senior leaders, board, legal advisors and consultants, the OAG criticizes the Ontario government for weak oversight of Laurentian. She calls for government intervention to forestall future...
A board member wrote to ask the following question: I was curious about one topic that has come up in recent years, your view on the Board’s role (if any) in influencing the balance between protecting students from uncomfortable discussions and speakers...
I was really pleased to have an opportunity to speak at the Council of Ontario Universities’ successful virtual governance conference. I spoke on a panel with Peter MacKinnon (former University of Saskatchewan President and thought-leader on university governance),...
A Battleground Concept: The concept of academic freedom is difficult for many within and outside of the university sector to grasp – in Canadian labour relations, it is the flag on a tug-of-war rope between those who see the concept as protecting societal interests...
The reaction to recent news stories about the discovery of the unmarked graves of hundreds (and as time goes on probably thousands) of indigenous children who were former attendees of residential schools has been one of shock and horror and profound sadness. I wrote...
Once grievances move into any sort of formal process, positions and feelings become entrenched, taking the parties further away from resolution. This column is a request to colleagues across the country to work together to create cultures inside your universities that...
As we try to make sense of the senseless, we should derive comfort from the fact that universities are much-needed instruments of cultural and social connection. Like many Canadians, I am preoccupied with Ukrainian International Airlines Flight 752, which exploded and...
Universities, like other organizations, enter into many contracts. There are leases, insurance policies, benefits policies, partnerships, research agreements, memoranda of understanding, placement agreements, employment agreements, confidentiality agreements,...
In a world of increasing legal risks and fiduciary obligations, it is difficult to understand why a university would do without one. All universities should have a chief legal officer, or what is commonly known as a general counsel or GC. This is an executive-level...
Sheryl Sandberg’s book, Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead, has been both embraced and criticized. Around the table, as a newly formed general counsel chapter of the Women’s Law Association of Ontario gathered to meet recently, there was no criticism. The...