The University of Michigan will bring its students back to campus for the fall, joining a number of other Michigan universities that are doing the same.
"It will consist of a mixture of in-person and remote classes structured to reflect our commitment to promoting public health while fulfilling our fundamental mission of transformative undergraduate, graduate and professional education," President Mark Schlissel said in a message to the campus community Monday morning.
"Thanks to the thoughtful and deliberate efforts of hundreds of members of the U-M community, our cautious optimism about the fall has coalesced into a path forward. Their work has given me confidence that we can do this safely, and we will continue to plan and prepare in the months ahead. We now have the opportunity to begin a new journey together, equipped with the very best guidance and ideas from our leading scholars, innovative students and expert staff."
U-M joins all other Michigan public university in offering some form of in-person instruction and options to live on campus. Most schools are also offering some hybrid form of in-person and online instruction.
Classes will be offered in a variety of formats, the university said.
More: University of Detroit-Mercy plans virtual and face-to-face classes this fall
More: Central Michigan University announces plans to reopen in fall for face-to-face classes
"Generally, large classes will be held remotely, small classes will be held in person, and medium-size classes will be a hybrid of the two. This and other means can be used to diminish classroom density," Schlissel said in his announcement.
"For the Ann Arbor campus, classes will begin Aug. 31, 2020, as previously scheduled, but fall break will be eliminated," the school said. "The last day of in-person classes for the semester will be Friday, Nov. 20. After a nine-day-long Thanksgiving break, classes will resume remotely on Monday, Nov. 30 and continue until Dec. 8., with finals running Dec. 10-18."
How others are doing it
Michigan State University President Samuel Stanley says he knows coronavirus will spread if students come back to campus in the fall.
While safety is “paramount," managing this risk is a chance worth taking for MSU, he said.
“The one thing that's going to be really important, then, is confidence in our students, faculty and staff and their willingness to abide by a number of the things we're going to be asking them to do on campus,” Stanley said.
Like Stanley, most college administrators are mulling over how to restart their programs, with no end in sight for the public health crisis.
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, which is tracking more than 860 institutions’ plans, two-thirds of colleges are planning to welcome back students in person, while only 7% are planning to hold classes only online. Many other colleges have yet to make a decision.
Back to campus – with masks, one-way hallways
Stanley is among a majority of university presidents who aspire to welcome students back to campus in the fall. He said many students had difficulties with remote learning in the spring. Some lacked the resources at home to complete courses online.
But Michigan State still plans to hold about half of its classes entirely online. Others will be taught via a hybrid format, with students doing some course sessions online and some in person, or in larger classrooms on campus. The school plans to accommodate students who cannot return in person by giving them an online curriculum.
Stanley said university affiliates will need to commit to a new way of life on the East Lansing campus: always wearing masks in public spaces, respecting mandated “directional flow” for certain hallways, and committing to self-isolation if exposed to the virus.
In order to decrease density in residential facilities and minimize unnecessary social contact, college administrators are lowering dormitory occupancy and mandating changes to life in residence halls.
At Eastern Michigan University, officials are promising any student who wants a room by themselves in the dorms will have one and slashed prices on sing-occupancy rooms.
More: Eastern Michigan University guarantees single rooms for students who don't want a roommate
Duke University, for example, is offering extra housing in local hotels and apartments, with most students promised a single room.
At historically Black Florida A&M University, the proposed plan for reopening this fall places a strong focus on health precautions. Black Americans have already been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Class sizes at FAMU will be limited, and students will be required to shower at scheduled times. Students are “strongly encouraged” to get tested for COVID-19 when they arrive on campus, and at least 2% of faculty and staff will be tested on a monthly basis.
The University of Colorado Boulder plans to house first-year students in “social cohort groups” tied to the courses they're registered to take.
“In a regular semester, [students] may have 40 or 50 different students that they would be interacting with rather than just 10. And we believe that by reducing that population density, we’ll certainly help to mitigate some of the problems with the virus," Chancellor Philip DiStefano told CNN.
Boston University’s students are invited back to campus, but they will have a choice between in-person classes or remote classes for their fall semester.
“It protects the health and safety of everyone, students and faculty, and provides the kind of flexibility that students need in these difficult times,” Sue Kennedy, BU’s interim associate provost for undergraduate affairs, wrote in a news release.
Why all the effort to reopen campuses? Many colleges — especially smaller, residential schools — need students on campus to stay afloat. Refunds for room and board when classes went online in March created budget crises at many institutions.
What's more, students said they might not return to college if classes were online again in the fall. In lawsuits and social media posts, they spent much of the spring saying it wasn't fair they had to pay full tuition rates to learn online.
Online classes throughout California
Still, some colleges have decided the risk of a community outbreak is too great.
California State University — the nation's largest public university system — and many universities in the University of California system plan to offer most of their fall semester coursework online.
CSU Chancellor Timothy White said he was skeptical of college administrators who say they can successfully bring their students back, noting forecasts of a “second wave” of the coronavirus that could severely disrupt campus activities.
“If you started in person and then had to flip back to virtual halfway through — that kind of yo-yo, you know — is that good for students and for the learning experience, or is it better to have a consistent space, the virtual space?” White said.
For academic programs that depend on specialized equipment — such as kilns for pottery workshops and laboratories for chemistry experiments — CSU plans to move forward with a limited number of on-campus offerings, according to White. Each of the system’s 23 campuses might teach anywhere from around 2% to 12% of its classes in person.
White said he is confident virtual courses will be more compelling than they were in the spring and hopes students will “stay with it” instead of taking a gap year.
“That's actually sort of field training for the future workforce, because when they graduate, chances are going to be increasing every day that they will be working in a virtual space in the future,” White said.
Shifting class schedules
Some universities are opening their campuses, but reimagining their academic calendars or approaches to minimize transmission of the virus.
Syracuse University plans to move to an alternating in-person schedule for the fall term. Half of all students will attend a class in-person one day, with the other half following along virtually. The students will swap spots on alternate days.
Stanford University plans to start its fall term earlier and allow only half of undergraduates back to campus each quarter.
And, like universities such as Rice, Notre Dame and Purdue, Stanford will end its term before Thanksgiving to avoid the expected re-emergence of coronavirus in late fall. Such universities want to reduce the chances that students become exposed to the virus at home and bring it back to campus.
USA TODAY Network reporters Samuel Zwickel and Elinor Aspegren contributed to this story. Contact David Jesse: 313-222-8851 or djesse@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @reporterdavidj
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