With a wealth of experience in law, administration and education, Heather Cole, Law’96 (Artsci’91, MPA’00), has returned to her alma mater as Assistant Dean of Students. She joins Queen’s Law from the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned two education degrees – MEd’07 and PhD’15 – and most recently completed a post-doctoral year on a national health study of at-risk populations. Previously, she worked in student affairs and development at Queen’s and MIT, at the federal Department of Justice conducting Aboriginal consultations across Canada, and had a distinguished career with the Ontario Public Service as a policy advisor, counsel and senior manager.

Now on the Law Faculty’s senior management team, she oversees all matters relating to JD students, from recruitment, admissions, enrollment matters and student life to career development. For three months prior to her June 1 appointment, she set up the Student Learning and Engagement Initiative. 

Just a few days into her new role, Heather Cole talked to Queen’s Law Reports about her plans for serving and educating JD students. 

QLR: What encouraged you to return to your alma mater, and what attracted you to the Assistant Dean position? 

HC: I love Kingston and Queen’s. I have a young daughter and was excited about the chance to raise her in a place that holds many happy memories for me. When the opportunity came up to work at Queen’s Law, I jumped at it. I have an eclectic background and there are not too many jobs out there that weave together my experience in law and higher education. The Assistant Dean position was a perfect fit.

QLR: As Assistant Dean of Students, what will you be doing first?

HC: My first order of business is take on some additional duties in education support and student learning. Having a law degree but also a PhD in education means I am very interested in the education of lawyers and how engaging students in learning helps to prepare them for life outside of law school. I am working with my team in Student Services to improve our programming and be even more responsive to student needs while they are at Queen’s Law.

QLR: What are your top priorities for JD students and the JD program at Queen’s Law?

HC: I would like to see more involvement of students in student service programming. There is quite a bit of administrative and operational work in which their insight and feedback on what we do would be invaluable.

QLR: What is the Student Learning and Engagement Initiative, and why is it important? 

HC: As the name implies, this initiative is all about student learning and engagement. Its purpose is to assist interested faculty in the development and refinement of their course design and delivery. We are trying to build a community of lifelong learners. We want to be able to talk about teaching and learning, share lessons learned and create a resource bank of best practices. We are hiring an Education Developer to coordinate the initiative, provide one-on-one support to faculty, and help build capacity within the law school to innovate and create new paths for learning in a variety of forums from physical classrooms to online spaces.

QLR: How were you involved with this initiative over the past three months, and how will you continue to be involved with it?

HC: I worked closely with the Dean to bring his vision to light. I developed the framework for the initiative and then a structure to implement it. The new Education Developer will report to me and I will work with that person to build a more comprehensive education support plan that we can pilot over the next few years. At this point, we are just in the early stages. The Education Developer still needs to be hired and we are not completely sure how the initiative will grow. What is exciting is that there is a strong commitment at Queen’s Law to focus on the design and delivery of legal education. We are just setting course on a journey that is unique. I have not seen initiatives like this in other law schools. I cannot wait to see how things develop. I know that whatever happens, students will benefit. In the end, that is what my job is all about – improving the student experience. I take that responsibility very seriously.