Winter 2021 Planning - Student FAQ

Further to UWindsor President Robert Gordon’s Winter 2021 announcement made on September 17Windsor Law's Winter 2021 Planning Working Group has put together the following FAQs to provide additional clarity on the Winter semester as it relates to the Faculty of Law. These FAQs will be updated regularly as more information becomes available.

After careful analyses of options and scenarios, the University of Windsor has made the decision that in Winter 2021 the majority of courses will continue to be offered through online delivery. Law classes will also remain primarily online in the Winter term. Since the pandemic requires physical distancing and cleaning between classes, the amount of available classroom space on campus has been drastically reduced. However, some opening up of usual campus activities will take place. While respecting health and safety protocols, students will be able to study together, practice for moots, hear from guest speakers, participate in reading groups and club activities, access student/career services in-person, and so on, in small groups. Similar activities will also continue online. In addition, some faculty members will be on campus and available to meet with students. Additional details regarding on-campus services are forthcoming. Up-to-date information about changes to law library services can always be found on the law library website.

Upper year and LLM courses will be primarily online. Exceptions will be made for clinical and externship placements (determined by the relevant clinical directors and instructors). We will also offer an option of one in-person class for all first-year JD students; for single JD students this will be Access to Justice (A2J) and, for Dual JD Students, this will be Indigenous Legal Orders (ILO).  First-year students who prefer to participate in these class exceptions remotely can do so. At time of writing, we predict separate in-person and virtual sections of A2J and a combined in-person/virtual session of ILO. All other first-year courses will be online. First-year students will be asked in November 2020 to opt-in or out of their in-person class option.

Construction on the Ron W. Ianni building will begin in January 2021. During the roughly two years of construction, Law will be relocated to clusters around campus. In keeping with the campus pandemic health and safety guidelines, events are currently being held virtually. However, our temporary spaces will provide room on campus for small events. Visit the TWL project website for more details on our temporary spaces and the Transforming Windsor Law project.

In light of the first-year foundational role academically, as well as the importance of building community during that year, we will prioritize an ‘in-person’ experience for first-years who want to be on campus (see above). In Winter 2021, there will also be more opportunities for law students to gather on campus in small groups.

Our location at the Canada-U.S. border remains a point of pride for Windsor Law. However, we recognize that COVID-19 has forced governments to temporarily shut down international border crossings to all but essential workers. Our Dual JD students who reside in the United States should not need to cross the border in Winter 2021, as Windsor Law and Detroit Mercy Law classes will both be primarily online.

Effective October 20th, if you are an international student with a valid study permit you will be permitted to travel to Canada, provided that you are attending a designated learning institution (DLI) with a COVID-19 readiness plan approved by the government. More Information on this item from the University of Windsor is available here. General information for international students attending the University of Windsor during the pandemic is available at Ask.Uwindsor. For additional information regarding graduate students, please see the Faculty of Graduate Studies website or contact Associate Dean (Research & Graduate Studies) Laverne Jacobs (ljacobs@uwindsor.ca).

Generally, no, with some limited exceptions (see above).

Details about convocation for the Class of 2021 will be forthcoming. Convocation is tentatively scheduled for May 28, 2021.

Winter course registration for upper-year students will begin on November 10, 2020.

The Winter 2021 tentative timetable for Law 2 and 3 is available at https://www.uwindsor.ca/law/academic-coordinator/35/law-2-and-3-registration.

Visit UWindsor's Coronavirus FAQ website