COVID-19 Allard School of Law Community Updates

Masks are no longer required in UBC public indoor spaces, including Allard Hall. Please see the June 27, 2022 UBC Broadcast message for more information.

With directives to stay home when feeling sick in order to prevent the spread of communicable disease, we are expecting increased short-term absences from the classroom for both instructors and students. To ensure that students who must self-isolate for short periods of time are not significantly disadvantaged, the law school has adopted temporary procedures for health-related short-term absences. Please review the information on our Managing Absences webpage to know what to expect and what to do if you need to self-isolate.

Events no longer require approval by an associate dean. Please review the UBC Ceremonies and Events COVID-19 Resources webpage.

Please contact Michelle Burchill, Allard Law Events Manager if you are organizing an event to avoid scheduling conflicts and for further guidance.

Some of our courses involve student participation in spaces that are not controlled by UBC, such as a variety of courses in our experiential learning program. Students enrolled in these courses will be required to follow the COVID-19 safety protocol of the organization controlling these spaces, even if they are more stringent than what UBC might require for its students (e.g., mandatory vaccination). If you have any concerns or questions, please contact Barbara Wang, Manager, Student Experience (wang@allard.ubc.ca).

Students planning trips outside of Canada for university activity must follow the requirements outlined in UBC’s Student Safety Abroad Policy. For more information on how to prepare for a safe international trip please visit the Student Safety Abroad Website.  

UBC’s Safety Abroad team will continue to support graduate students with academically necessary research outside of Canada that can no longer be delayed to apply for exemption through UBC’s Student Safety Abroad policy (SSAP). Under the SSAP, any student planning academic travel to destinations with travel advisories of “avoid non-essential travel” or “avoid all travel” requires an exemption through the high-risk travel protocol managed by the Student Safety Abroad team. The Safety Abroad team reviews each application before forwarding it to a designated department head for final approval. For additional information about the SSAP, please refer to the Safety Abroad Website and contact safety.abroad@ubc.ca.

If a student is (a) stranded in another country due to the imposition of travel restrictions; (b) forced to take a longer and more complicated journey back to BC due to a sudden ban on direct flights to Canada; (c) required to quarantine upon their return to Canada; or (d) otherwise delayed in their return to BC due to the imposition of travel restrictions, one factor to be considered in determining whether academic concessions are to be granted is whether the travel is for non-essential purposes.

More generally, anyone considering international travel should check the travel restrictions of their destination on the Government of Canada travel advisories webpage and check UBC's travel guidance. For additional travel guidance during these exceptional times, please see the Government of Canada’s webpage COVID-19: Travel, testing and borders.