University President Pitney won’t mandate Covid vaccines at this time for UAF

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Interim University of Alaska President Pat Pitney announced today that the University of Alaska Fairbanks will not be mandating vaccines for Covid-19 among faculty, staff, contractors, and students.

Pitney was being asked by some members of UAF’s education community to enact such a mandate at the Fairbanks campus but has decided not to — for now.

“After discussion with leaders throughout the UA system, I have decided to maintain the existing process for specific programmatic vaccine requirements and not require COVID-19 vaccination for Fairbanks-based faculty, staff and in-person students at this time,” she wrote.

Supervisors can request vaccination requirements for specific situations or environments.

“While I wholeheartedly believe that vaccination is our best line of defense against COVID-19, and encourage all students and employees to get vaccinated, other considerations led me to this decision,” Pitney wrote.

She said that there is an increased potential for a federal vaccination requirement in the near future that could change her decision.

“We are already receiving information about targeted federal requirements, and we will apply those as necessary. However, it appears likely that we may need to institute a systemwide vaccination requirement to comply with one or more of our federal funding agencies. It makes sense to hold implementation of any broad vaccination requirement until we have more clarity on the extent and scope of the anticipated federal vaccination requirements,” she said.

Meanwhile, she reminded the university campuses to mask as required, stay home when sick, and help to keep infection rates at a manageable level.

14 COMMENTS

  1. Nobody has the authority to force you to put anything in your body. These mandates are unconstitutional and illegal. Just say NO to untested drugs!

    • Unless you’re an Athlete?

      The UA pres has no issues with vaccine mandates,
      and neither does our military
      or founding fathers
      or public schools…

  2. This is the way it should play out.
    .
    For those who want shot mandates, masks etc., please feel free to hand in your I.D. at the front desk, and enjoy your self-imposed retirement/quarantine.

  3. Pat is a cancer survivor and a true warrior. And, she understands the limitations that needs to be imposed on a restrictive, tyrannical, leftist form of government. Her position on mandates makes her a viable force and she should be a shoe-in as a full-fledged UA President. One smart lady.

      • DB:
        The campus chancellor’s did this at the request of athletic directors and dorm staff, not Pat. When you examine Pat’s credentials, personal politics, achievements and background, you will find she is rational and not dogmatic like so many Lefties. She doesn’t pull the trigger on impulse. She squeezes it slowly. She’s an independent thinker, not steered by the other radicals at UAA, UAF, and UAJ.

        • Pat is the boss and often the UA President dictates what happens on the campuses. If her campuses have vaccine mandates that is on her. Which is neither here nor there, but how it works when you are the CEO.

  4. The federal presidential executive order declaring an emergency for Covid19 signed by President Trump ends October 21, 2021 and is not extendable after that thus ends federal authorizations for any Covid19 “protocols”. I’m assuming everything means everything. The EO underpinning appears to be unauthorized by Presidential Order as of October 21, 2021. I hope this is confirmed. I have heard it only from one source.

  5. I am grateful for the well-considered position of Interim UA President Pitney. I hoped other people in positions of power would have weighed the choice to capitulate or resist as thoughtfully. As a private college nursing student I was forced into compliance with a vaccine mandate over a year ago despite having had Covid previously. I felt fortunate to be among the majority who suffered no long-term ill effects from Covid infection or the vaccine. The federal mandate imposed upon our population that is forcing employment termination of thousands of critical front-line first responders, doctors, nurses and other clinical staff is a terrible price to pay for an essentially politically-driven overreaction and a tragedy of countless adverse consequences. It proves that the Godless ignorance of the self-righteous, virtue-signaling meme, “My body, my decision,” applies only to the murder of the innocent unborn, and not to the innocence lost through a rushed, emergency vaccine development process and a compulsory mandate to submit or be cancelled.

  6. IT WAS AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL trespass of property rights of American rights to life, liberty and I hope they all those imposing unconstitutional oppressive usurpations get criminally reviewed and penalized.

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