Professor Heidi Gorovitz Robertson attended the Association for Law, Property, and Society annual meeting in Southampton, England.  She participated on a panel entitled New Conceptions of Planning in a Climate Changing World.  Her presentation focused on her work on legislative preemption of local decision-making for oil and gas energy development projects as compared to the legislative grant of local decision-making authority for wind and solar energy development decisions. 

Robertson also participated in a field trip to the New Forest National Park, which was declared a national forest by William the Conqueror in 1079.  At that time, local residents retained rights of common, allowing them to use the land to graze and pasture their livestock (and dig clay, cut wood, etc.)  These rights are attached to the adjacent land and are still exercised by New Forest Commoners, some of them 13th-generation commoners. The property professors saw the commons, along with ponies, donkeys, and cattle, and met with a 13th-generation commoner and a member of the Verderers Court, which retains jurisdiction over the New Forest.

Robertson is the Steven W. Percy Professor of Law and Professor of Environmental Studies.

At the invitation of a group of faculty members from the University of Michigan’s Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, Professor Heidi Gorovitz Robertson participated in the submission of a “concept paper” response to a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) funding opportunity announcement.  If the concept paper submission is selected by the DOE, the group will be invited to submit a full grant application and Robertson will be a Co-PI on the project.  The project is to build a regional Center of Excellence in Offshore Wind for the Great Lakes.  In addition to Professor Robertson, the group includes faculty members from the University of Michigan and Michigan State University. 

Professor Heidi Gorovitz Robertson edited all property law-related articles in the May/June 2023 (Vol. 37, No. 3)  issue of the American Bar Association’s Probate and Property Magazine, on which she has served as Associate Editor for property since 2021.  Property and Probate is a publication of the ABA’s Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Section.

Professor Heidi Gorovitz Robertson attended the “International Academic Association on Planning, Law, and Property Rights” 17th annual meeting at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. As Session Chair and Moderator of the panel on “Rural Planning and Energy Development,” she presented “Irrationalizing the Local Role in Energy Development: Oil and Gas versus Wind and Solar in Ohio.”

Professor Heidi Gorovitz Robertson served as a peer reviewer for applicants to the Fulbright Commission’s Fulbright Specialists program roster for the 2023 Cycle 3 application process. Since 2017, Robertson has been a peer reviewer for several application cycles annually in the fields of law, environmental studies, and environmental science.

Professor Shih-Chun Steven Chien presented in Taiwan at the 2023 Symposium for Drug Treatment Reform and Prevention of Recidivism, organized by the Taiwanese Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and the High Prosecutor’s Office. Professor Chien, pictured below, discussed the structure and challenges of drug courts in the United States.

Professor Shih-Chun Steven Chien is currently a visiting scholar at the Institutum Iurisprudentiae, Academia Sinica – Taiwan’s leading academic institution.
He is conducting his new empirical research project focusing on the criminal justice system in East Asia. During his visit, he will be teaching at multiple law schools across Taiwan.

Dean Lee Fisher has published an article in Cleveland Magazine titled, “A New Era for CSU’s Law School: Why the Name Change Matters.” The article describes the process the Law School carried out to study and evaluate whether to remove the name “Marshall” from the name of the Law School. In the end, the CSU Board of Trustees decided to change the name of the Law School to the Cleveland State University School of Law.

Dean Fisher explained that the Law School’s “careful, thoughtful, deliberate process modeled what we teach our law students: including the importance of due diligence, due process, inclusiveness, transparency and the need to listen to, respect and understand the viewpoints of others.”

Professor Milena Sterio participated in a conference entitled “Rescuing and Bringing Comfort to Captive Children and Women, Bringing Perpetrators to Justice” on April 27. At the conference, she spoke at a panel titled “Growing a Global Response.” Her remarks focused on the different prosecutorial options for bringing perpetrators of atrocity crimes committed in Ukraine to justice.  

Professor Milena Sterio will co-edit a book titled “Ukraine and the Legal Accountability of Russia: The Emergence of a New Global Order,” with Professors Yvonne Dutton, Michael Scharf, and Paul Williams.  The book will be published by Routledge in 2024.  This will be Professor Sterio’s eighth book.