NEWS - AND THE WINNER IS...

The Staff and Faculty Team has taken this year’s Reconciliation Resolution Challenge. In fact, 20% of all of the law school’s staff and faculty completed the MOOC (that’s one in five!!) 

The final standings are as follows –

1)      Staff/Faculty – 20% (29 of the eligible 145 people completed the course)

2)      1L – 11.5% (24 of the eligible 209 people completed the course)

3)      2L – 4.1% (9 of the eligible 217 people completed the course)

4)      Grad – 2.6% (5 of 192 total grad students completed the course)

5)      3/4L – 1.8% (4 of the eligible 217 people completed the course)

TOTAL: 71 people from our little community completed the course – THAT IS AMAZING! Congratulations to everyone who completed the course!

Please visit this page again in December 2021 and January 2022 for details of the 2022 RRC. In the meantime, read more about the 2021 RRC below. 

The Students’ Law Society (SLS) and the Indigenous Initiatives Office (IIO) welcome you to the 2021 Reconciliation Resolution Challenge!

As you may know, in years past the Reconciliation Resolution Challenge has been personal – we asked folks to set their own goal to do a number of things in each calendar year to learn more about the truth that is necessary for reconciliation. Since March of 2020, the COVID pandemic has distanced our community in ways we could not have imagined at this time last year. As we have all spent, and will continue to spend, more time alone than we care to reflect on, we want to use this year’s Challenge to bring folks together – with a shared goal, and a little friendly competition!

2021 Challenge

Starting January 11, the SLS and IIO challenge all members of our community to enroll in and complete the “Indigenous Canada” Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) which is offered by the University of Alberta via Coursera. The course is interesting, fun, free and it takes approximately 20 hours to complete.

To encourage participation, we are going to form “teams” and keep track of how many people on each team complete the course. Each team will have a set of co-captains to cheer you on and keep you updated on how your team is doing. Come back to this webpage soon to watch the Challenge Launch video! As each team will have a different number of members, the winning team will be that with the highest percentage of team members that complete the course. The teams will be as follows:

1)      1Ls (Class of 2023 or later)

2)      2Ls (Class of 2022)

3)      3/4Ls (Class of 2021)

4)      Grad students (SJD, LLM, GPLLM and MSL students)

5)      Staff and Faculty Members (including the Bora Laskin team, PBSC, LAWS, Asper Centre, DLS, etc.)

Team members who have already completed the MOOC before the Challenge was issued will count towards the team total, if they (i) provide proof of completion (a screenshot, a certificate is not necessary) and (ii) complete the IIO survey (more on this below).

Timelines

The Challenge starts NOW and will run until April 8, 2020 at 5:00 p.m. EST (the last day of classes), with the winning team announced on April 28 at 10:00 a.m. EST (the deadline for written work). The MOOC itself is structured into 12 “weeks” and there are roughly 13 weeks in which you can complete the Challenge.

The Prize!!

The knowledge you will gain through the course is the main prize but, of course, there is more! Subject to COVID-19 precautions, folks who have completed the Challenge (i.e. the MOOC and survey) on the winning team, as well as all team captains who also completed it, will be invited to a socially distanced gathering on the law school’s back lawn that will include food from an Indigenous caterer (contactless pick up!) and a COVID-safe performance. The event will be scheduled on or before the date the winner is announced. Those who are unable to attend at the law school in person will receive a small prize/gift of thanks by mail and will be invited to an online gathering.

Are you ready to take the Challenge?

Here are the steps:

1)      Sign up for Indigenous Canada offered by the University of Alberta on Coursera: https://www.coursera.org/learn/indigenous-canada - please note that you're welcome to choose the "certificate" option (which has a cost) but it's not necessary for this challenge.

2)      Email amanda.carling@utoronto.ca to let us know that you’ve committed to the 2021 Reconciliation Resolution Challenge

3)      (Optional) Share your resolution with others via email or social media (use #ReconciliationResolution and tag @UTLawSLS & @UTLawIIO on Twitter) and challenge your friends to join your team!

4)      Complete the course

5)      Email amanda.carling@utoronto.ca with proof of completion (a screen shot or email is enough!) – you will be sent a link to a brief survey from the IIO about your experience with the course

6)      Feel amazing about yourself and your commitment to reconciliation

Questions

If you have any questions or ideas to make the 2021 Reconciliation Resolution even better, feel free to get in touch with Amanda (amanda.carling@utoronto.ca) or Willem and Robert (Students' Law Society studentslawsociety@gmail.com). We will also be posting this information and updates on the competition online here so come back to updates! 

We hope you will take the Challenge and we look forward to celebrating with the winners later this year!