Reports of students exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms while attending mass in person final exams has sparked anger among students and faculty.
Nearly a dozen posts on the university’s subreddit document how students are going to their finals while exhibiting flu-like symptoms. A video of hundreds of students in close quarters filing out of the Student Recreation Centre after an exam on Friday, Dec. 17, prompted the question: “At what cost?”
Hours before that exam, Gregor Kiczales, a professor of computer science at UBC wrote that it could have been done at home.
“Without @UBC action, 800+ students will go into SRC tomorrow to write what is actually an online exam-an exam we could easily have had them do at home,” Kiczales wrote on Twitter. “With Omicron being so contagious if some come in sick more will walk out sick. I feel bad being part of making them do it.”
Alan Richardson, a professor of philosophy at UBC and president of the UBC Faculty said the situation has left him “bereft.”
“The news about students going sick to exams at @ubc is not news that ubc students are bad people,” Richardson wrote. “It is news that the inability of UBC to make proactive, precautionary decisions has created perverse incentives for students to the detriment of the community.”
Students have also raised concerns over how there are no testing sites on campus for symptomatic students. However, in a Dec. 14 statement from the university's president Santa J. Ono it was written that PCR testing for symptomatic students, faculty and staff will start in January.
UBC’s Alma Mater Society penned a letter to the university in light of these concerns, calling for clarity, leadership, and safety.
In a recent email to Vancouver Is Awesome the university responded to the criticism, indicating final exams may be held online at the Dean’s discretion.
“In recognition of the understandable anxiety of many of our community members, and out of an abundance of caution, we have advised our Deans that they may work with their staff and professors to transition exams online where appropriate,” wrote Kurt Heinrich, UBC’s senior director of media relations.
“The decision on what exams can be transitioned depends on the specific courses and will be made by individual professors in collaboration with their Deans and academic leadership.”
“We continue to receive assurances from public health and the provincial government that we are not currently seeing a spike in cases that present a risk to the health of our students, faculty and staff,” Heinrich continued. “We have been advised that we have significant controls and measures in place to keep our community safe.”
