Dr. Evaristus Oshionebo appointed interim dean, Faculty of Law

I am very pleased to announce that Dr. Evaristus Oshionebo, PhD, has been appointed interim dean of the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Law for a 12-month term starting July 1, 2024. 

Dr. Oshionebo is currently a professor and associate dean at the faculty and joined UCalgary in 2013. He won the Students' Union Teaching Excellence Award in 2014 and, in 2017, he was awarded the GREAT Supervisor Award by the Faculty of Graduate Studies.

Prior to joining UCalgary Law, he was a tenured associate professor at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Law, where he won the University of Manitoba/University of Manitoba Faculty Association Merit Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2013, as well as the Students' Teacher Recognition Award for outstanding teaching. 

Oshionebo’s research focuses primarily on the law and policy governing the extraction and mining of natural resources and has written several books and articles on the subject. His book, Mineral Mining in Africa: Legal and Fiscal Regimes (Routledge, 2020), provides a comparative analysis of the legal and fiscal frameworks for hard-rock mining in several African countries.

In addition to his work on natural resources, Oshionebo researches and publishes on corporate responsibility, corporate governance, regulation of transnational corporations, sustainable development, international investment law and intellectual property law.

I would also like to thank Dr. Ian Holloway, PhD, KC, for his excellent leadership at the Faculty of Law since 2011. His term as dean comes to an end on June 30. He is the longest-serving dean of law in North America, and the longest-serving in Canada in the past 60 years. Over his extraordinary decanal tenure — 13 years here, and 11 before that at the University of Western Ontario — Holloway has ensured our law school continues to be a place where we are not afraid to try new things, to learn from and celebrate our failures, and has positioned the school as a leader in legal education provincially, nationally and around the world.

Please join me in warmly welcoming Evaristus Oshionebo to his role as interim dean and thanking Ian Holloway for his service to the Faculty of Law and the University of Calgary. 

Penny Werthner, PhD 
Interim Provost and Vice-President (Academic)