Starting in the winter semesters of 2025, the University of New Brunswick unveiled its new MacLauchlan Prize for Effective Writing, awarded to one student in each of UNB’s fourteen faculties. The prize is worth $1000 and hopes to support students both financially and emotionally, by encouraging submissions from students who might go under appreciated by similar awards. UNB Chancellor Wade MacLauchlan, who the prize was named after, noted that the prize is meant to recognize “effectiveness” rather than “excellence.” In this way, Chancellor MacLauchlan hopes that it will inspire a wider range of UNB students, with the goal of fostering a long lasting and universal culture of writers at the university. Submissions to the prize remain open until April 1, 2025.

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On Wednesday, March 12, 2025, the Charlotte Street Art Centre began offering a “Baby Crafters” workshop, aimed towards new parents. Tiziana Zevallos, the workshop’s coordinator, noted that Baby Crafters is open to all parents, but tries to specifically address the isolation that many new parents feel. The workshop runs from 10:00am to noon every Wednesday and Zevallos provides all the materials necessary to participate. The Charlotte Street Art Centre itself takes special precautions to accommodate a workshop centered around babies, including a deep clean of the room the workshop takes place in. Zevallos noted that many parents benefit from both the artistic outlet Baby Crafters provides and the sense of community it fosters.

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The University of New Brunswick’s Arts Matters Conference is celebrating its tenth anniversary from March 20th to 22nd. This year’s conference marks the first time since 2020 that the number of submissions and participants matched pre-COVID numbers.

Arts matters is an interdisciplinary conference that accepts topics in the humanities, social sciences, and creative disciplines and is open to undergraduate in Eastern Canada, hosted in at UNB’s Fredericton campus.

To celebrate the the anniversary the Arts Matters organizers, who are almost entirely undergraduate students from UNB, are hosting a formal gala at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery.

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On March 7, 2025, the University of New Brunswick Student Union announced the results of their General Election, as well as changes to its leadership structure.

Three of the vice president positions in the election differ significantly from their current iteration, both in name and responsibilities:

The Vice President Events and Services, who oversaw both administrative services (like the UNBSU foodbank) and campus events (like concerts), is now split into two separate positions, one handling services and the other handling events. The Vice President Communications, who handled media communications and marketing, was removed from the executive and replaced by a non-VP Director of Communications.

Finally, the Vice President Academic was renamed Vice President Policy and Relations to better reflect the scope of their work, although that position’s responsibilities and mandate remained the same.

These changes were the result of several months of effort from the UNBSU executives (the VPs and President), who hope that this new structure will more evenly distribute workload and increase the UNBSU’s efficiency.

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On Monday, February 24, 2025, University of New Brunswick President Paul Mazerolle signed Scarborough Charter on Anti-Black Racism and Black Inclusion in Higher Education. The Charter was created in collaboration with students, faculty, staff, and various community stakeholders at the University of Toronto, Scarborough, between 2020 and 2022. Over sixty other Canadian universities have signed the charter. Joanne Owour, the Advocacy and Education Officer in UNB’s Human Rights and Equity Office explained the history of the charter and how it is intended to encourage accountability and future actions from UNB in regards to anti-Black racism.

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On February 15, 2025, the UNB Reds Men’s Hockey team finished their last game of the regular season under new Head Coach, Rob Hennigar. Hennigar has worked with the Reds for over twelve years, serving as an Assistant Coach under previous head coach Gardiner MacDougal. After MacDougal led the Reds through a perfect season in 2023-24, not losing a single game, Hennigar emphasized that nothing major has changed for the Reds on the ice. Hennigar and UNB Reds players Colton Kramerer and Cole MacKay attributed the smooth transition between head coaches to UNB’s legacy of hockey excellence, while still noting that the Reds have benefited from a new “Hennigar twist” this year.

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On February 12, 2025, ACORN held a nationwide rally to bring attention to the Federal Government’s proposal to regulate non-sufficient funds fees (NSF fees). The rally was part of an ongoing campaign to reduce NSF fees from their current average of $45-$48 each to $10.

ACORN New Brunswick Chair Nichola Taylor described how NSF fees disproportionately affect low-income Frederictonians by charging them for not having enough funds in their account, which limits their ability to pay the initial fee, causing a “circle of debt.”

Taylor emphasized that ACORN wants the Finance Minister Dominique LeBlanc, and the Department of Finance, to implement regulations on NSF fees before a federal election jeopardizes the initiative.

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On February 12, 2025, the University of New Brunswick Student Union (UNBSU) announced that their referendum to add a discounted bus pass to international student fees had passed. The referendum asked “Would you support the following – for International Students: That all International students pay an annual mandatory fee of $180 that will provide them with a City of Fredericton Bus Pass from
September 1 to August 31 of each year.” Approximately 30% of international students voted in the referendum, of which 73.6% voted in favour. Only international students voted in the referendum, as the mandatory fee only applied to them. Domestic students who want a discounted bus pass can opt-in but are not required to pay the fee otherwise. Previously, UNB students paid $720 for an annual bus pass, the new discount offers an annual bus passes for $180.

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The UNB Chapter of Women in Cyber Security (WiCyS), which began in October 2024, is continuing its efforts to encourage female representation in the cyber security industry by offering courses, guest lectures, and community to female identifying students. As part of the international WiCyS organization, the UNB chapter provides educational opportunities to gain certificates and experience to female identifying students at UNB that will make them more employable upon graduation. President Hwany Kim, and Vice President Ashley Smith, both recognized the underrepresentation of women in cyber security, both at university and in the work force. This new group hopes to encourage female identifying students to break into this male dominated field by focusing on both education and community.

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In late January of 2025 bars in Atlantic Canada were hit by a Guinness shortage. For over two weeks pubs and bars were unable to order new kegs of Guinness. According to the owner of O’Hickey’s Irish Pub, Jason Cooling, Fredericton stout drinkers switched their habits from Guinness, to its main competitor Murphy’s. Cooling also noted the importance of Guinness returning to bars in time for St. Patrick’s day, when many pubs do a majority of their business. As of February 13 Guinness returned to O’Hickey’s, but had not returned to the other bars and pubs in Fredericton.

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In late January of 2025, Resolve, a game developer and research group at the University of New Brunswick, released their second table top game titled “Project AUDE.” Project AUDE is a historical strategy card game created in collaboration with the UNB Archives and Special Collections. Dr. Scott Preston, the Director of Resolve, and Katie Roger, Resolve’s Group Coordinator, described the process of creating a history based card game, some of the unique advantages of table top games, and their favourite pieces of UNB history uncovered during the game’s production.

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Five months after the introduction of a bike lock program at University of New Brunswick, the big challenge is building awareness that the program exists.

In September of 2024 the University of New Brunswick Student Union and UNB Security began the Safe-Lock program. Safe-Lock allows UNB students to borrow high quality “U” locks free of charge—so long as they return them after use.

After five months in operation, both Des Dupuis, UNB Security’s Crime Prevention and Community Liaison Officer, and Drashtant Varma, UNBSU President, noted that the primary challenge facing the Safe-Lock is a lack of exposure—as many students are completely unaware of the program.

Dupuis emphasized that this program is more relevant than ever, even during the winter months, because both bike usage and bike thefts on the UNB campus have increased significantly over the past ten years.

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