Kathleen Nolan has changed the careers and lives of so many students. She gave students a new paradigm to see socio-legal issues through. All students should have an opportunity to get inspired by her teaching!
To: University of Waterloo Administration
UW Students want Kathleen Nolan back! Kathleen Nolan is a federal prosecutor and an exceptional lecturer. Her passion and affinity towards analyzing complex legal issues manifests itself both within and without the classroom. It manifests within the classroom in the form of her deep commitment to teaching students the complex and often elusive relationship between law, politics, morality, and the ideals of justice. Outside the classroom, it is her passion towards solving the pressing legal issues of our day that drives her to create opportunities that advance principles of social justice within the legal machinery. For instance, she was instrumental in creating Kitchener's first drug treatment court. Such distinct experience is one of the many reasons that enables Ms Nolan to instruct students about the contemporary issues in Canadian Criminal law in a unique and remarkable way.
Some socio-legal issues such as abortion, euthanasia, pornography, marijuana, police power, civil rights, criminal trials, capital punishment, and prisons are too important to be simply subsumed by a theory-centered and an overly academic perspective. Learning such issues must include instruction that is rooted in politico-legal pragmatism and social applicability. Ms Kathleen Nolan's experience as a federal prosecutor and her teaching style facilitates precisely such learning.
We therefore ask bringing back Ms Kathleen Nolan to teach Canadian Criminal Law.
Sincerely,