News

<p>Two days earlier than planned, New Brunswick will move from Level 3 to Level 2 of the COVID-19 Winter Action Plan on Friday at 11:59 p.m. St. Thomas University announced Thursday around 4:40 p.m. that campus offices will open on Jan. 31 and in-person classes will begin on Feb. 7.  Cases spiked last week but [&hellip;]</p>

<p>The St. Thomas University Students’ Union is finding solutions to student engagement while temporarily online. Tyler MaGee, STUSU&#8217;s president, said STUSU had to come up with different plans depending on whether or not classes stay online.    “If we stay online, we will be diving into policy, because there&#8217;s not a whole lot that we&#8217;re [&hellip;]</p>

<p>A previous version of this article published on Jan. 23 stated ASHRAE tested the airflow in STU classrooms. In fact, an external engineer tested the airflow according to ASHRAE standards. We regret the error. The Aquinian would like to clarify the previous headline in the article stated that 80 per cent of classrooms met ventilation [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Cloth masks are out, medical masks are in. University of New Brunswick students received an email at 3:47 p.m. on Jan. 11 that said only surgical, N95 and KN95 masks would be allowed on campus in Level 2 or higher. Sarah Blakely, a fourth-year medicinal chemistry student at UNB, was shocked when she first read [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Some students are finding the time to read more than textbooks this semester. The St. Thomas Student Reconciliation Committee created a book club to engage with the STU community.   Stevie DeMerchant, chair of the committee, took on the initiative alongside Jacob Moore, a member of the committee. “The goal of this project is to [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Gabriel Marquez, a fourth-year St. Thomas University student, studied from his home country of Ecuador since June 2020.  This month, he is finally coming back to Fredericton.  Marquez wanted to be back for his last semester of university in person. He didn’t plan on coming back at the beginning of the fall semester since out [&hellip;]</p>

<p>The University of New Brunswick campus pharmacy distributed around 150 COVID-19 booster shots on Jan. 10 when the Government of New Brunswick’s booster shot age bracket expanded to include those 18 and older. Ayub Chishti, the UNB campus pharmacist, expects more people to come once Pfizer-BioNTech/Comirnaty vaccines are available. On Jan. 7, GNB announced the [&hellip;]</p>

<p>The Government of New Brunswick announced in a press conference at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday that the province will enter Level 3 of the COVID-19 winter plan at 11:59 p.m. on Jan. 14.  The province sits at a record-high of 104 hospitalizations. Premier Blaine Higgs said the move to Level 3 was made due to [&hellip;]</p>

<p>In an email to students on Dec. 22, St. Thomas University announced classes will move online on Jan. 10 and resume in-person on Jan. 24 due to the new COVID-19 variant, Omicron.  Jeffrey Carleton, associate vice-president of communications, said the decision was made over the past few days. Kim Fenwick, vice-president of academic and research, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Lorna Butler, the University of New Brunswick Faculty of Nursing dean, won the Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing 2021 Academic Administration Excellence Award. She initially refused when her faculty members suggested nominating her for the award. &#8220;The reason that I said no initially was … I see my role as promoting others and making [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Fredericton residents might have a new way of transportation by the holiday season. Uride founder, Cody Ruberto, decided to solve the lack of transportation issue after he saw crowds of people standing in minus 30-degree weather in his hometown of Thunder Bay, Ontario. Uride is a ride-sharing app, similar to Uber or Lyft. &#8220;Any time [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Around 50 people sat in Kinsella Auditorium on St. Thomas University’s campus last Saturday for the Transgender Day of Remembrance ceremony. Another 20 people joined through the Facebook live stream. Transgender Day of Remembrance was started by Gwendolyn Ann Smith on Nov. 20, 1999, in honour of her friend Rita Hester. Sofia Mehlitz, internal coordinator [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Note: The president’s report remains in-camera, meaning in private, as per Senate’s Feb. 11, 2021 decision. Because of this, The Aquinian is unable to cover the contents of the president’s report in these briefs.  VP finance and administration retirement Dawn Russell, St. Thomas University president, announced on Nov. 26 that Lily Fraser, STU’s vice-president finance and [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Ten out of 11 New Brunswick locals from the Canadian Union of Public Employees, including Local 963, which represents workers from the New Brunswick Liquor Corporation, ratified the wage agreements offered by the Higgs’ government. CUPE Local 1253 was the only local that didn&#8217;t agree to the province&#8217;s offer. This local represents school bus drivers, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>A group of around 40 students gathered in front of George Martin Hall on St. Thomas University’s campus on Friday to raise awareness for Divest STU. Divest STU is a student-led campaign that calls for the university to remove the investments it made into the fossil fuel industry and reinvest the money into sustainable holdings. [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Please note: This story was updated on Nov. 23 to more accurately represent the information provided in Allyson Lunny&#8217;s keynote. St. Thomas University&#8217;s annual endowed chair in criminology and criminal justice lecture happened on Nov. 15 in the Kinsella Auditorium. This year’s symposium theme was Interrogating Hate: From Minassian to the Military. Allyson Lunny, associate [&hellip;]</p>

<p>St. Thomas University will continue its current course model for the winter semester, with a mix of in-person and online classes. Jeffrey Carleton, vice-president of communications at STU, said it is prudent to continue with this model, even when 98 per cent of students, faculty and staff are fully-vaccinated. &#8220;Even with the high vaccination rates [&hellip;]</p>

<p>A climate emergency teach-in last week highlighted the need for sustainable and ethical environmental practices in New Brunswick. St. Thomas University students from professor Matthew Hayes&#8217; sociology class organized the talk using the tagline, “this is not a drill.” “This is not hypothetical,” said University of New Brunswick environmental law and policy professor Jason McLean, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Katherine Thorsteinson, assistant professor of media literacy at St. Thomas University, will start teaching a new course in January. The new digital literacy course will be offered as a credit under the English department. The course will teach students the digital tools they need to understand the political, ethical and controversial issues related to online [&hellip;]</p>

<p>The St. Thomas University international office will host the third annual Winter Warm Up clothing drive in Sir James Dunn Hall on Nov. 15. The clothing drive aims to outfit STU students who are lacking winter clothing. There will be racks with donated winter clothing and accessories, readily available for students to browse and take. [&hellip;]</p>