Download the Press Release HERE
To the University of Lethbridge community,
Like many of you, we at the ULSU have been closely watching the decisions made
by the provincial government surrounding Covid-19 regulations in the province,
and how our institution will respond to these new and unprecedented changes. We
assure students that when it comes to matters of Covid-19 our top priority will
always be the health and safety of students.
We are incredibly concerned about the recent announcement of planned
regulations including the refusal to test asymptomatic individuals, refusing to
make asymptomatic but positive individuals self isolate, and the refusal to
trace the contacts of positive Covid-19 individuals in our province. We are
incredibly concerned about the harm these standards could cause to our province
as a whole and especially our students as they prepare for their long-awaited
return to campus.
While we would never claim to be experts in infectious disease, and have the
utmost faith in our public health officials and front-line health care workers,
our concern is borne out of the fact that these are unprecedented regulations
that have not been mirrored at all in similar locations to Alberta. As well as
the fact that these regulations have received shard critique from many other
public health officials in our province, country, and around the globe.
Furthermore, we are concerned that these decisions are being rushed to try and
insist a pandemic is over when it is very much continuing and poses a threat to
many at our institution. These regulations are also not in line with what has
been practiced and what has been recommended throughout the course of the
pandemic and Alberta will largely be a guinea pig for this level of relaxed
Covid-19 protocols.
We at the Students’ Union will be pushing for decisions to be made with student
safety as the first the foremost priority in any decisions surrounding Covid-19
regulations. In the coming weeks, ULSU President Holly Kletke and Vice
President External Ryan Lindblad will be seeking meetings with both the
Minister of Advanced Education, and the Minister of Health to discuss how these
Covid-19 regulations could affect students and push for reconsideration in the
rollout of these regulations.
Additionally, the ULSU will be meeting and having ongoing conversations with
the Upper Administration at the University to understand their plan for the
upcoming return to campus and to make recommendations based around Student
safety such as having a masking policy and the continued insistence that
individuals who test positive should not be coming to campus,
The ULSU is committed to doing all we can to ensure a safe return to campus
this September. Further updates and information on these efforts will be posted
to keep the student body informed and up to date with what they can expect come
September.
Yours in solidarity,
Holly Kletke, President
Ryan Lindblad, Vice-President External
Amy Mendenhall, Vice-President Student Affairs
Rebecca Parkkari, Vice-President Academic
Mark Serebryansky, Vice-President Operations and Finance
