Senate makes law school J.D. change official
Current law students will now have the option of graduating with an L.L.B. (Bachelor of Law) or a J.D. (Juris Doctor) designation for their degrees.
On Feb.28, University Senate voted unanimously to change the law degree designation to a J.D. effective this fall. This means all new students will only be able to receive a J.D. degree.
Queen’s made the switch to differentiate Queen’s law degree from those of other common-law countries, whose L.L.B.s are undergraduate degrees. The United States also uses the J.D. designation.
Alumni will be able to apply to convert their L.L.B.s to J.D.s beginning this fall.
Jane Emrich, the Faculty of Law’s assistant dean of students, said the faculty’s priority right now is helping graduating, returning and prospective students understand the difference and converting their degrees.
“For alumni … we have to do this in conjunction with the office of the university registrar because it’s that office that will actually be handling conversion of our graduated students,” she said, adding that they haven’t set a specific date to start conversions yet.
Emrich said only three graduating students out of about 160 are retaining their L.L.B. designations.
There are four second-year students who are returning next year who have opted to retain their L.L.B. designations.
“Very few have decided to retain the L.L.B., which is consistent with what we’ve thought student opinion was all along.”
—Gloria Er-Chua
Graduate studies department resumes accepting new international students
After a two-month wait, graduate departments began accepting international students again.
In December, Dean of Graduate Studies and Research Janice Deakin sent a memo to eight graduate departments asking them not to admit any new international students “beyond the number which would replace those leaving.”
Queen’s introduced an International Tuition Award (ITA) in 2007 to offset international graduate students’ approximately $11,000 tuition by $5,000 to bring it closer to domestic levels.
International student enrollment increased from 300 in 2006 to 372 in 2007, Deakin said.
“It exceeded the amount of money we had budgeted for the [ITA] program,” she said. “We said, ‘We need to take a pause … we’ll develop the plan and move forward’.”
Her office had originally budgeted about $700,000 for the awards.
She said there’s an incentive to admit domestic graduate students because the University receives provincial government funding for each domestic graduate student it has.
Under the Reaching Higher plan, the province provides $13,000 per year per master’s degree student and $25,000 per year per doctoral candidate, Deakin said.
“The University receives no money for international students,” she said. “It’s a tricky balance.”
The money increased domestic enrollment brings in, along with funding from her office, will contribute to the ITA program so more international students will be accepted for 2008-09.
“At full implementation, there will be $1.75 million towards the ITA.”
—Gloria Er-Chua
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