“Charter Member Educators” of the MA-ALS Program who taught the first cohort in 2008 Neil Boyd, LLM, Professor, SFU Canadian Law and Legal System Robert Gordon, PhD, Professor, and ALS Program Director, SFU Selected Topics in Applied Legal Studies David Macalister, LLM, Associate Professor, SFU Legal Philosophy Graeme Bowbrick, LLM, QC, Adjunct Professor Legal Research and Communication George Cadman, QC, Boughton Law, Adjunct Professor Real Property I and Real Property II Tony Wilson, QC, Boughton Law, Adjunct Professor Contracts Peter Ramsay, QC, Ramsay Lampman Rhodes, Adjunct Professor Wills, Estates and Incapacity Planning Marny Morin, Notary Public Society of Notaries Public Selected Topics in Applied Legal Studies Todd McKendrick, MBA, Adjunct Professor Issues in Legal Practice John Whatley, PhD, Former Program Director, Centre for Online and Distance Learning
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admission criteria in addition to the preferences of The Society of Notaries. Slowly, the demographics of each incoming student body changed as did the size of each cohort, which grew considerably with each passing year. The numbers of applicants did not dwindle, in part because, in many respects, a professional graduate program has an advantage over other university graduate programs. It has a connection to an area of professional employment following graduation, and as long as the student is successful in completing the professional training and other programs that had to be completed prior to being sworn in as a Notary, graduates pretty much had a job waiting at the end of the day. The first cohort was selected in 2007 and 15 applicants began their coursework at the Surrey Campus of SFU in September 2008. That was a small but blessedly manageable cohort that, as it turns out, was about half the size of what would eventually become the standard cohort. At one point, the cohort numbers swelled to such a degree where there were serious discussions about splitting the intakes with consequential financial and program coordination challenges. From the University’s perspective, that would have been a good move because the program was then able to pull its weight financially in both the short and longer terms. Premium fees were contemplated at the outset but were not, and are not, being charged, primarily because of an earlier provincial policy that sought to encourage students to attend programs at the Surrey Campus of SFU where the MA-ALS Program was located. At the time, MA-ALS was one of a handful of graduate programs that were physically located at what was then still a new (ish) SFU campus. The first cohort mostly stayed with the Program, completed all their BC Notaries Association
courses (some faster than others), and did well in passing the rigorous threepart final examination for the degree. The majority survived and eventually entered the Notary Public professional education program, and that became the norm for subsequent cohorts.
The first cohort was selected in 2007 and 15 applicants began their coursework at the Surrey Campus of SFU in September 2008. There were the inevitable casualties along the way (also known as the “melt”) as is the case with other professional degree programs. In law schools, for example, melts occur in December (the Christmas Melt) after the first-term experience, and again in the Summer. The Summer Melt is usually driven by a student’s selfevaluation of his or her suitability for the practice of law (as well as the meaning of life). In the case of MA-ALS students, the melts appeared to be due to • their underestimation of the time and energy involved in completing three courses in a 13–14-week term; • their overestimation of their abilities to juggle study required for courses that have high expectations; • home commitments; and • employment expectations. The majority had not set foot in a university for many years and had forgotten the skills required to successfully negotiate the institution. Some students faced significant language challenges because they were members of incoming migrant groups and were fairly recent arrivals in Canada. Others were unacquainted with Canadian common law requirements and found much mystery in the whole affair. To be fair, however, the same can be said of those entering the MA-ALS Volume 30 Number 1 Spring 2021
