UNB is demanding in person attendance to classes with no excuses for absences or reasonings not to attend aside from being COVID positive or experiencing symptoms. 

With the drastic rise in COVID cases and the arrival of new variants, many students at UNB feel extremely unsafe and anxious about returning to in-person. 

UNB requires students to have surgical masks. Students are expected to buy these masks (and will not be allowed on campus without them, but are also demanded to attend in-person) which is more money out of students pockets, aside from their recent rise in tuition. 

To add, some professors have chosen to keep their course solely online– but it’s not just their choice. In order for professors to have their class online, they are needed to apply and then are either declined or approved, depending on whether or not they can “figure out how to” deliver online and in-person. So, to sum it up, if UNB “can’t be bothered to figure it out”, they will decline and tell students and professors alike to suck it up. 

Not to mention, we are already almost halfway through the semester, and with some courses being online still and some being transferred to fully in-person, this has caused immense strain on many students’ schedules and created an unnecessary burden. Many students now have to navigate through altering their schedules while also being so far into a semester and plenty of tests and assignments have begun, it is not fair to put this strain on the students without them having a choice. Being forced to be on campus is creating more problems than not. 

Many students also rely on public transportation to get to school which then creates the unnecessary possibility of exposure to COVID, as well as altering and putting more stress on already established schedules and financial situations. 

Even with valid reasonings as to why you may not be able to attend in-person (whether it be the inability to acquire the required masks, issues with travel to and from campus, or general feeling of being unsafe/uncomfortable), UNB tries to provide excuses as to what you can do and why you should still attend in-person. But does UNB not understand that “no” means “no”? Or do they actually just not care what their students are trying to tell them? 

The Goal: make online classes officially available for those who do not feel safe or those who have reasonings outside of having COVID for not being able to attend in-person. 

These are real lives UNB is putting in danger and these are valid reasonings UNB is ignoring. Regardless if they are “working with Public Health to ensure the health and safety of the UNB community”, they are ignoring the opinions of one of the most important people at university, which are the students.