Faculty members present included:
Esmeralda Thornhill and Bruce Archibald (Dalhousie)
Fabien Gelinas (McGill)
Roberto Ibañez and Esteban Lara (UP)
Sandy Gaines and Steve Zamora (Houston)
Alejandro Posadas (CIDE)
David Gantz (Arizona)
Gabriel Cavazos-Villanueva, Claudia Espejo, Patricia Aira and Marlon López (Monterrey Tec)
Juan Vega (UNAM)

Student paper winners present in Monterrey:

Efrain Castañeda (UP)
Rogelio Cortés (Monterrey Tec)
Will David (Ottawa)
Annie Guerard-Langlois (McGill)
Pilar Mendoza (Arizona)
Lee Seshagiri (Dalhousie)
April Tabangay (Houston)

The meeting covered the following agenda items:
New members
Steve Zamora reported that all four institutions that had been invited to join NACLE, as voted on by our membership, have notified us that they accept the invitation to join, effective in the 2006-2007 academic year. The new NACLE members are: University of British Columbia Faculty of Law, in Vancouver; University of California at Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, in Berkeley; Fordham Law School, in New York City; and Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), in Mexico City. This brings to 13 the number of institutions that are members of NACLE.

Student exchanges
We spent a considerable amount of time discussing the administration of semester-long student exchanges, which continue to be the principal activity of NACLE. We noted several deficiencies – for instance, we must do a better job of requiring students to complete “exit questionnaires” after they have completed their NACLE exchange semesters, and the NACLE “secretariat” must do a better job in serving as a clearinghouse for exchanges – providing and collecting information to disseminate to members. In this regard, Lindsye Forson, our NACLE student exchange coordinator at the University of Houston, is working on a questionnaire form that will be available on the NACLE web site.

Several members raised the question whether there is a requirement that NACLE members accept a certain number of exchange students, as rumors had circulated that certain schools had indicated they could not accept exchange students. We noted that NACLE has never decided to require a minimum number of exchanges, and we also noted that there is an imbalance of requests to visit at certain schools – GWU and McGill being the most popular host schools. We do not require NACLE members to accept all students who apply for exchanges, but we also recognize a general requirement to continue to receive students and to encourage one’s own students to do exchanges. We noted that the addition of new members should help relieve this imbalance, but we also noted that it is important for every NACLE member institution to encourage their own students to do exchanges, and to “sell” their own institutions as attractive places to for foreign study. Prof. Zamora also encouraged members to be as flexible as possible in arranging exchanges.

Lingering problems of exchanges, discussed in the meeting, included the need to assign effective faculty advisers by the host school to help students select courses; assuring the language ability of students; and problems of last minute applications and cancellations. There was also a suggestion – endorsed by everyone present – that before students begin a NACLE exchange, they should be assigned background readings on the history, culture and legal system of the host country. Lindsye Forson, our student exchange coordinator, will be working on the compilation of a suggested reading list for Canadian, Mexican and U.S. students.

One result of the discussion of student exchanges was the decision to create a Student Exchange Committee, as discussed below. We noted the need to make better use of the NACLE web site as an information center for students, as noted in the Website discussion below, and also the need to create student support groups (amigos/amis/friends of NACLE) to help spread the word among our students about NACLE programs.

NACLE workshops
We examined NACLE’s pattern over the past several years of organizing a single, large curriculum development workshop that combines several elements: a central theme for the workshop; inclusion of professors from discrete areas of specialization, who have participated in workshops in the past; and presentations by student paper competition winners. The results have been generally favorable – most participants have found the workshops worthwhile – but we attempted to analyze what works and what does not work when it comes to our workshops.

We all agreed that the attendance of student paper competition winners, and the presentations by students at our annual workshop, have been among the highlights of our workshops. We also agreed to advertise the student paper competitions more effectively, to bring the competition to the attention of students even before the Fall semester begins.

There was general agreement on continuing to hold a Spring CD workshop. We discussed the problems we have experienced in delaying announcement of workshop dates, and of finding dates that are convenient, with the general consensus being that dates in the first half of April are probably the most convenient for most people. (We should keep in mind that the workshops involve only a small number of students and faculty from each member – usually one or two students, and a similar number of faculty.) In terms of format, we agreed to establish a Programs committee of NACLE faculty members to develop programs and policies for workshops. (See discussion of committees below.) We will set a date soon for the Spring 2007 “large” workshop, but we also hope that NACLE will be able to help support smaller workshops of faculty who cooperate in discrete areas (such as comparative family law), in order to support their interaction.

One important matter that all supported was the desire to decide very early the dates of the 2007 Spring workshop. Julian Mithani, our NACLE coordinator of workshops, will be working with the Programs committee to set the dates for a Spring 2007 meeting. The preferred dates, according to discussions in Monterrey, would be either before or after Easter week. (Easter is on April 8, 2007.) Since the American Society of International Law Annual Meeting is March 28-31, 2007, it looks like the best dates for our NACLE workshop will be April 12 to 15, 2007 (arrival April 12, with meetings the 13th, 14th and morning of the 15th). WE HAVE NOT YET CHOSEN THE LOCATION FOR NEXT YEAR’S WORKSHOP – WE ARE OPEN TO SUGGESTIONS. RECENT WORKSHOPS HAVE BEEN HELD IN WASHINGTON (2003),HOUSTON (2004), HALIFAX (2005), AND MONTERREY (2006). 2007 SEEMS TO POINT TO CANADA, BUT THIS IS NOT A REQUIREMENT

NACLE budget
Julian Mithani, our NACLE coordinator in charge of budgets, gave a summary report on NACLE’s budget. A copy of that report is attached. Since our FIPSE grant ended in February 2005, we have become dependant entirely on the NACLE annual dues account to fund our activities. As the brief budget statement prepared by Julian shows, we expect to end the current fiscal year (which ends Aug. 31, 2006) solvent – just barely. This means that we will have to ask for timely payment of NACLE dues in August, to fund activities for the coming year.

We have incurred some extra expenses this year, as agreed. The most important extra expense involved a contract with an advertising agency to (1) enhance the NACLE web site (see more on the web site below), (2) produce an attractive NACLE poster for use in our schools, and (3) publish and mail an attractive postcard announcement about NACLE to law schools and government agencies in Canada, Mexico and the United States. The purpose of this campaign is to raise the profile of NACLE, both internally in our law schools and in legal education generally.

With 4 new members joining NACLE next year, our annual dues contributions will be $26,000. This amount will barely allow us to carry out activities during the coming year, the principal expenses being the salaries of NACLE coordinators (3 law students), mailing and other communications expenses, expenses related to curriculum development workshops, and web administration expenses. Our new, post-FIPSE “lean” budget means that we will have to be creative in securing funding our CD workshops – perhaps by asking for some level of financial support from the host law schools for CD workshops.

NACLE web site
There was enthusiasm in the meeting for the promise of inaugurating, before the end of the current academic year, a newly enhanced NACLE web site. Jeremy Binkley, our new NACLE webmaster, will be in charge of working with his fellow coordinators, as well as NACLE faculty and students, to make the web site informative, up-to-date and interesting. We have contracted with an advertising agency and a software firm on a new website format that will allow us to be much more interactive. The new website has been inaugurated, and we are still loading information on it. To help with this, we are going to create a Website and distance learning committee, to work with Jeremy. The goal is to use the internet to bring our students and faculty together, and to provide a much more interactive use of the web site. Among other things, Jeremy will look into providing a good discussion board or forum capability for faculty and students.

Please note – we will need information from faculty and administrators to help provide the content that will “sell” NACLE’s projects and initiatives, so please be responsive to requests for information from our coordinators.

NACLE Committees
Participants in the Monterrey business meeting endorsed the idea of creating three committees that will be charged with responsibility over NACLE projects. We ask the members of the committees to work actively with us to help move NACLE’s projects forward. The time commitment will not be great, but broader involvement of members will greatly improve our initiatives.

Julian Mithani will look into the possibility of using internet software (SKYPE) to help “convene” these committees electronically through voice communication, although there seems to be some question about whether university servers will permit this. In any case, it is important that the committee members communicate and plan their activities with anticipation.

The three committees are the following. I will ask one of our members to serve as chair of each committee, to work with the NACLE coordinator and other members.

STUDENT EXCHANGE COMMITTEE
This committee will work with NACLE coordinator Lindsye Forson to help promote student exchanges, and to smooth over the bureaucratic and other hurdles to exchanges. The committee will also look into the possibility of identifying funding resources to provide scholarship support for student exchanges.

At Monterrey, the following persons indicated an interest in serving on this committee. PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU WISH TO ADD YOUR NAME TO THE LIST. I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE MORE MEMBERS REPRESENTED.
1. David Gantz
2. Esmeralda Thornhill
3. Gabriel Cavazos Villanueva
4. Sandy Gaines
5. Alejandro Posadas
6. Esteban Lara

PROGRAMS COMMITTEE (CD WORKSHOPS AND FACULTY PROJECTS)
This committee will be responsible for planning and carrying out NACLE CD workshops and other meetings or projects supported by NACLE. It is important that this committee convene soon, in order to begin planning for the 2006-2007 academic year workshop(s). It will work with NACLE coordinator Julian Mithani.

At Monterrey, the following persons indicated an interest in serving on this committee. PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU WISH TO ADD YOUR NAME TO THE LIST. I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE MORE MEMBERS REPRESENTED.
1. Juan Vega
2. Bruce Archibald
3. Fabien Gelinas
4. Marlon Lopez
5. Esmeralda Thornhill
6. Gabriel Cavazos Villanueva
7. Roberto Ibañez

WEBSITE AND DISTANCE EDUCATION COMMITTEE
This committee will work with Jeremy Binkley, our NACLE webmaster, to make our web site an effective instrument in bringing students and faculty together. It will also work with Jeremy to identify distance learning technologies that could be put into effect to help carry out NACLE’s goals to provide the means for Canadian, Mexican and U.S. students and faculty to interact.

At Monterrey, the following persons indicated an interest in serving on this committee. PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU WISH TO ADD YOUR NAME TO THE LIST. I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE MORE MEMBERS REPRESENTED.
1. Fabien Gelinas
2. Marlon Lopez
3. Esmeralda Thornhill
4. Alejandro Posadas