2020 Teaching Innovation Award in Interdisciplinary Legal Studies Teaching
CULJP Awards
2019 Winner of Teaching Innovation Award in Interdisciplinary Legal Studies Teaching
Douglas Smith, Lecturer in Legal Studies at Brandeis University and Joshua A. Guberman Teaching Fellow
The Consortium for Undergraduate Law & Justice Programs is pleased to announce that Brandeis University's clinical course on Human Rights Advocacy in the Immigration System is the recipient of the 2019 Teaching Innovation Award in Interdisciplinary Legal Studies Teaching. In bestowing this award, the committee recognizes Douglas Smith, Lecturer in Legal Studies at Brandeis University and Joshua A. Guberman Teaching Fellow, whose course design is truly innovative and experiential.
The committee appreciates the strong public-facing outreach component of the course in addressing deficiencies in the availability of legal services to marginalized immigrant communities and the organizations that advocate on their behalf.
In developing and institutionalizing the course, Professor Smith spent considerable time and energy cultivating long-term commitments with a community law office and also navigating resistance from leading Boston-area immigrant legal advocacy organizations concerned with protecting their turfs.
Professor Smith met with three students in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election and identified this course as "the optimal vehicle to implement their idea of an effective student-centered service delivery and advocacy model for area immigrants."
The committee also wishes to recommend Doing Public Sociology, taught by Associate Professor Ellen Berrey in Crime, Law, & Society Program of the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto Mississauga, for an honorary mention. This senior seminar has a remarkable public outreach component, as students spend the semester conducting research on their selected socio-legal topics, and then develop multimedia presentations based on their research for non-academic audiences.
The committee appreciates the strong public-facing outreach component of the course in addressing deficiencies in the availability of legal services to marginalized immigrant communities and the organizations that advocate on their behalf.
In developing and institutionalizing the course, Professor Smith spent considerable time and energy cultivating long-term commitments with a community law office and also navigating resistance from leading Boston-area immigrant legal advocacy organizations concerned with protecting their turfs.
Professor Smith met with three students in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election and identified this course as "the optimal vehicle to implement their idea of an effective student-centered service delivery and advocacy model for area immigrants."
The committee also wishes to recommend Doing Public Sociology, taught by Associate Professor Ellen Berrey in Crime, Law, & Society Program of the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto Mississauga, for an honorary mention. This senior seminar has a remarkable public outreach component, as students spend the semester conducting research on their selected socio-legal topics, and then develop multimedia presentations based on their research for non-academic audiences.
2019 Winner of Best Undergraduate Student Paper Award in Interdisciplinary Legal Studies
The Consortium for Undergraduate Law & Justice Programs is pleased to announce that ‘Only a Matter of Crime: Immigration Politics and Executive-Judicial Relations in Argentina,’ is the recipient of the 2019 Best Undergraduate Student Paper Award in Interdisciplinary Legal Studies. In bestowing this award, the committee recognized the outstanding accomplishment of Matthew Martin, a University of Massachusetts Legal Studies Student whose sophisticated, well-researched, and well-written honors thesis is more than deserving of the award.
Mr. Martin’s research paper provides a unique, well documented look into how the immigration plays a key role in Argentinean politics. The paper included a wide, well-researched literature review and was based on a discourse analysis of all the public statements of the Macri Administration regarding immigration (in Spanish, then translated into English).
Mr. Martin’s work speaks to very important questions that take place in Western established democracies and beyond.
The committee would also like to give an honorable mention to another paper we also found exciting, sophisticated and well-researched: Gihad Nasr’s ‘Carceral Space: The Interaction between the Physical and the Social’ (nominated by Sida Liu, University of Toronto). This was an excellent undergraduate research paper of a quality that is very rare to find in a stand-alone undergraduate course. Having read her work, we also share Professor Liu’s excitement about Gihad Nasr’s research interest and prospective studies at the graduate level.
Mr. Martin’s research paper provides a unique, well documented look into how the immigration plays a key role in Argentinean politics. The paper included a wide, well-researched literature review and was based on a discourse analysis of all the public statements of the Macri Administration regarding immigration (in Spanish, then translated into English).
Mr. Martin’s work speaks to very important questions that take place in Western established democracies and beyond.
The committee would also like to give an honorable mention to another paper we also found exciting, sophisticated and well-researched: Gihad Nasr’s ‘Carceral Space: The Interaction between the Physical and the Social’ (nominated by Sida Liu, University of Toronto). This was an excellent undergraduate research paper of a quality that is very rare to find in a stand-alone undergraduate course. Having read her work, we also share Professor Liu’s excitement about Gihad Nasr’s research interest and prospective studies at the graduate level.
