Congratulations to Professor Elaine Hughes who is a recipient of the McCalla Professorship for 2011-12! Only outstanding academics that have made significant contributions to their field of research are eligible to hold these prestigious awards. McCalla Professorships release professors from teaching duties for a nine-month period so that they can further their research and scholarly activities.
Hughes-whose research interests include domestic and international environmental law, natural resources law, and animal welfare law-is very pleased and excited to receive the Professorship. "It's wonderful to have my work supported by the University in this way," says Hughes. "The project that I'll be working on is to produce a teaching textbook on Public Land and Natural Resource Law in Canada, in collaboration with co-authors Dean Alastair Lucas and Professor Arlene Kwasniak, both colleagues from the University of Calgary, Faculty of Law. We're also hoping to involve student research assistants from both schools.
"The sustainable management of our natural resources and public lands is of enormous social, economic, political, and environmental importance to Canada. Land-use conflict and risks associated with new technologies are creating intense new pressures on our natural resources and public lands, and both federal and provincial government policies and enactments are of central importance to resource management at all stages. Our book proposes to survey the key legal issues common to the regulation of all resource sectors in Canada, at a level suitable for law school classrooms. The text will be published by Irwin Law, as part of their Essentials of Canadian Law series."
These Professorships are named after the first Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research. McCalla Professors are those who value excellence in teaching, acknowledge the importance of students, conduct themselves in an ethical manner, are collaborative, open to change, take pride in history and traditions and are committed to integrating their research and teaching.