COVID-19 Allard School of Law Community Updates

Face coverings (a medical or non-medical mask, or a tightly woven fabric) are required for all indoor public areas at UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan, including lobbies, hallways, stairwells, elevators, classrooms and labs.

Faculty members do not need to wear a mask when teaching (the same applies to student presenters) if they have 2m of distance between themselves and the students. 

A small number of people are unable to wear a mask for medical or disability-related reasons. To receive an exemption from wearing a mask, students should complete the Student Face Covering Exemption Form and review the online Face Covering or Mask Exemption information. The student will then be contacted by the Centre for Accessibility to verify the exemption. Students who receive a mask exemption should send a copy of the Letter of Accommodation noting the exemption to their Allard Law Advisor (Kaila Mikkelsen for JD Students, Tania Astorino for LLMCL and LLM Tax students, and Joanne Chung for LLM and PhD students) who will then inform the student’s instructors. 

All faculty, staff and students are encouraged to bring concerns about the implementation of COVID-19 rules or safety protocols or incidents of non-compliance to the attention of the Dean or, for staff, your supervisor. To bring concerns regarding COVID-19 safety to the Dean, please use info@allard.ubc.ca, which is monitored by the Dean’s Office.

Masks may be removed only to take occasional sips of a beverage, or while actively eating while seated in a designated eating area, and should be immediately replaced. Current designated eating areas within Allard Hall include: the Lew Forum (when not being used for teaching); the seating areas in the Hong Kong Student Lounge; other seating areas on the first floor. All areas on the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th floors are closed for eating, and no eating is permitted in classrooms or at any other time.

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.

All JD- and LLM-hosted in-person events and meetings must be approved by the Associate Dean Academic Affairs (ADAA) and the Associate Dean Graduate Studies (ADGS), respectively. As allowed for by the BCCDC Return to Campus Public Health Guidance (March 18, 2022) (PDF), the ADAA or ADGS will approve an event either as part of a formal educational program or as a non-academic event. To be considered educational, both of the following criteria must be met:

• the event is open only to law students, law faculty and/or staff and not to the UBC community at large or to the broader public; AND
• the event supports students in completing their academic program OR is offered in relation to a service that is required by the accreditation of the JD or LLM-CL degree programs?

The first step in the approval process is to submit your event requests to Michelle Burchill, Allard Law Events Manager at burchill@allard.ubc.ca. Please do not email the ADAA or the ADGS your event request.  

Different guidelines and requirements apply to educational program events and non-academic events. All events that involve food and beverage must comply with the guidelines for food and beverages at events below. 

Compliance with Public Health Orders and UBC guidelines is expected. Non-compliance may result in a suspension of the ability to host events at the law school.

Guidelines for Educational Programs 

• Rooms can be at 100% capacity regardless of the number of participants. 
• The province’s vaccine requirement/passport does not apply to these types of events. 

Guidelines for Non-academic Events 

• Rooms can be at 100% capacity regardless of the number of participants.
• All non-academic events must comply with the Provincial Health Officer’s Order on Gatherings and Events (March 10, 2022) (PDF) and any other relevant PHOs.
• For all indoor events, organizers are required to check provincial vaccination passports for attendees. More information on checking passports is available on the BC Government’s Proof of Vaccination Information for Business webpage. Please contact Michelle Burchill if you need further guidance. 

Guidelines for Food and Beverage at ALL Events 

• Outside of lunchtime programming, food and beverage is discouraged at events and must be authorized through Michelle Burchill.  
• For lunchtime programming, participants should eat at the start of the event, so people are not unmasked and eating throughout. Those who are eating must remain seated and must put their masks back on as soon as they have finished consuming their food. 
• If food is involved or allowed for in the event, programming should be delayed to allow participants who do not wish to be in the event space with unmasked participants to attend all of the programming. This should be stated on event materials.  

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.

As of March 1, 2022, the university will no longer require regular rapid testing or vaccine declarations except as needed to comply with the relevant Public Health Orders such as in UBC Residence or in health settings. Please refer to the February 28 UBC Broadcast message for more information.

Together with the BC Public Health, we strongly encourage all students, faculty and staff to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Please visit the BC’s COVID-19 Immunization Plan or the Immunize BC website to register. 

You need to wear a mask in indoor public spaces, including classrooms, libraries, washrooms and hallways. You do not need to wear a mask in your office or in small meetings with colleagues that are held in non-public spaces (e.g., offices or boardrooms), but please respect the safety preferences of your colleagues. You also do not need to wear a mask when teaching (the same applies to student presenters) if you have 2m of distance between yourself and the students (this is marked with tape for your reference) and/or there is a barrier at the podium. If you choose to teach in a mask, you may find it helpful to wear a wireless microphone or use the podium microphone to ensure students can hear you.

Students need to wear masks in indoor public spaces (classrooms, libraries, washrooms, hallways, etc). The mask order extends to meetings with students in offices, too. Both students and faculty/staff must remain masked when meeting together in offices and meeting rooms (although these are otherwise non-public spaces).

Masks may be removed when seated to eat in designated eating places and for occasional sips of a beverage, but must be replace immediately afterwards.

All in-person events at Allard Hall must be approved by an associate dean or the Dean:  

• the Associate Dean Academic Affairs (ADAA) for JD student-focused events;  
• the Associate Dean Graduate Studies (ADGS) for Graduate Program events;  
• the Associate Dean Research and International (ADRI) for research-related events; and  
• the Dean for external bookings and anything else.  

As allowed for by the BCCDC Return to Campus Public Health Guidance (January 25, 2022) (PDF), we will approve an event either as part of a formal educational program or as non-academic event. To be considered educational, both of the following criteria must be met:

• the event is open only to law students, faculty, and/or staff, not to the UBC community at large or to the broader public; AND
• the event supports students in completing their academic program OR is offered in relation to a service that is required by the accreditation of the JD or LLM-CL degree program.

The first step in the approval process is to submit your event requests to Michelle Burchill, Allard Law Events Manager at burchill@allard.ubc.ca. Please do not email the ADs or the Dean directly with your event request.  

Different guidelines and requirements apply to educational program events and non-academic events. All events that involve food and beverage must comply with the guidelines for food and beverages at events below. 

Guidelines for Educational Programs 

• Rooms can be at 100% capacity regardless of the number of participants. 
• The province’s vaccine requirement/passport does not apply to these types of events. 

Guidelines for Non-academic Events 

• All non-academic events must comply with the Provincial Health Officer’s Order on Gatherings and Events (February 16, 2022) (PDF)) and any other relevant PHOs. 
• For all indoor events, organizers are required to check provincial vaccination passports for attendees. More information on checking passports is available on the BC Government’s Proof of Vaccination Information for Business webpage. Please contact Michelle Burchill if you need further guidance. 

Guidelines for Food and Beverage at ALL Events 

• Outside of lunchtime programming, food and beverage is discouraged at events and must be authorized through Michelle Burchill.  
• For lunchtime programming, participants should eat at the start of the event, so people are not unmasked and eating throughout. Those who are eating must remain seated and must put their masks back on as soon as they have finished consuming their food. 
• If food is involved or allowed for in the event, programming should be delayed to allow participants who do not wish to be in the event space with unmasked participants to attend all of the programming. This should be stated on event materials.