There’s a serious side to law school and then there’s the fun side that was very much on view at Osgoode Hall Law School’s second annual Launch of the School Year Event on Sept. 8.
What prompted all of the smiles and laughter were three photo captions that made the finalists’ short list in an Osgoode contest that asked students to describe a photo of new Dean Lorne Sossin, foot resting on a hard hat in the construction zone that will be his new office, talking into an unplugged telephone.
Members of the Osgoode community, who were gathered in the Moot Court Room to celebrate the start of the new academic year as well as the completion of the first phase of Osgoode’s $50-million renovation and expansion with the reopening of its classroom wing, voted with their applause for the winning photo caption.
“There’s nothing like a picture crying out for a story to motivate people,” said a grinning Sossin, noting that the contest sponsored by the Osgoode Community Enhancement Forum had attracted more than 100 entries.
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Juris doctor (JD) students Richard Chan and Grant LoPatriello shared first place for their identical submission: “It was like this when I got here!” Second place went to caption writer Sarah Mohamed for "The Future is Calling" and Jason Borges claimed third place for "If we had walls, and if those walls could talk."
The first-place caption writers each received a pair of platinum Toronto Maple Leafs tickets, courtesy of McMillan LLP, which publicly announced at the event its $300,000 donation to the Building Osgoode Campaign, the largest fundraising campaign in Canadian law school history that came to a successful close on April 30.
In addition to the photo caption contest, the audience – which included York President & Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri, who gave a warm welcome to new and returning law students, and Patrick Monahan, vice-president academic & provost – was treated to a six-minute, behind-the-hoarding video tour of the Osgoode building construction with Sossin starring as the tour guide.
The video, which was created by JD student and videographer Jason Sacha, may not have been Toronto International Film Festival quality, but the audience loved it. Sossin said: “If there’s one message that we can all take away from this video, it’s that the brightest days for Osgoode lie ahead.”
Click here to view the video.