Earlier this month, Barbara Billingsley informed me that she is stepping down from her role as Dean of Law at the end of her upcoming fourth year in that position. Her term will now end on June 30, 2024, when she will resume her previous position as a professor in the Faculty of Law.
Professor Billingsley became dean of the University of Alberta Faculty of Law and Wilbur Fee Bowker Professor of Law on July 1, 2020. She is the first woman to be appointed to the position, and is the 13th dean in the Faculty's history. As dean, she led the faculty through the transition to on-line learning during COVID and through the university’s re-organization under the University of Alberta for Tomorrow initiative. She has also overseen significant renovations to the Law Centre and substantial renewal of Law’s complement of faculty members and staff.
Dean Billingsley has been a full-time faculty member since 2001, researching and teaching primarily in the areas of insurance law, civil litigation processes and constitutional law. She is a recipient of the Canadian Bar Association/Law Society of Alberta Award for Distinguished Scholarship, the University of Alberta's Rutherford Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and the Faculty of Law's Honourable Tevie Miller Teaching Excellence Award. She has been a member of the Law Society of Alberta for more than 30 years.
Having earned her LLB and LLM here in 1990 and 1995, respectively, and her BA in political science in 1987, Dean Billingsley is a proud alumna of the U of A.
I am grateful for Dean Billingsley’s expertise and dedication to the university’s students and to our learning environment. Please join me in recognizing her vast achievements and wishing her the best on the next steps of her journey. A search and selection process to find Dean Billingsley’s successor will begin in the 2023-24 term.
Sincerely,
Verna Yiu
Interim Provost and Vice-President (Academic)
Marvin Washington
College Dean and Vice-Provost, College of Social Sciences and Humanities