York President and Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri has issued this message to the University community:
I am pleased to announce the reappointment of Dean Lorne Sossin to a second five-year term as dean of Osgoode Hall Law School. The reappointment has been approved by the executive committee of the Board of Governors, and will take effect on July 1, 2015.
Prior to his appointment as dean of Osgoode in 2010, Lorne Sossin was a professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto, and held the position of associate dean at the University of Toronto. He holds an LLB from Osgoode, doctorates from the University of Toronto and Columbia University, and was a faculty member at Osgoode and the Political Science Department at York before his appointment at U of T.
As dean, he has provided outstanding leadership, continuing to advance Osgoode’s national and international reputation as a leading law school and advancing implementation of the law school’s strategic plan in support of institutional priorities relating to student engagement and success and research intensification. Particularly noteworthy is Osgoode’s distinctive experiential education program, which provides students with opportunities to enrich their studies through community-based projects. His deanship has seen the renovation and expansion of the school’s state-of-the-art facilities, the creation of the first Office of Experiential Education, and Office of the Student Success and Wellness Counsellor, the McMurtry Visiting Clinical Fellowship, Catalyst Fellowship and Artist in Residence programs. As part of Osgoode’s Digital Initiative, this year featured new digital platforms for student services, innovation in digital pedagogy and the launch of the Osgoode “digital commons” for research dissemination. Osgoode’s Professional Development Centre has enhanced its leadership position in professional legal education with an array of new certificate programs and significant growth in the LLM program. Finally, Dean Sossin has led successful fundraising initiatives in support of student scholarships, awards and bursaries, capital projects, the recently established Winkler Institute for Dispute Resolution and the celebration this year of Osgoode’s 125th anniversary.
Please join me in congratulating Dean Sossin on his reappointment and wishing him well as he undertakes his second term.