By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Students will return to Bowling Green State University in August, and leave campus for Thanksgiving and finish the semester online.
A memorandum of understanding between the university and the Faculty Association spells out the details of the forthcoming session with classes beginning on Aug. 26.
Those will continue until the Thanksgiving break which will begin Wednesday, Nov. 25.
Students will not return to campus for the rest of the semester. The last week of classes will be conducted remotely, and exams will be administered online from Dec. 7-11.
BGSU President Rodney Rogers said this decision was made in consultation with Wood County Health Director Ben Batey and others, who pointed out the risk of all students leaving for the holiday, socializing, often in large groups, and then returning to campus.
Winter Session, which would have been the third since instituted in 2019, will be canceled. The spring semester instead will begin Jan. 11 and end April 30.
The decision not to hold winter session was made because a large number of the students who enroll do so for short-term study abroad programs, Rogers said. Since those will not be offered in January 2021, because of the coronavirus, it seemed better not to hold the session this year.
Beginning spring semester earlier gives the administration more flexibility to deal with whatever occurs in early 2021.
Rogers said this is the first part of unveiling how the university will open for the fall semester.
The committees that are working out plans have all but finished the details.
Students and faculty will be asked to commit to wearing face masks when appropriate. Also, they will be asked to do health self-assessments every morning.
A number of courses will be offered in a hybrid manner meeting both in person and online. At times, he said, some students may be seated in front of the teacher while others are watching via Webex, the virtual meeting software used by the university.
“It is important for students to learn from one another,” Rogers said. There are several ways to accomplish that.
Students will be in dorms, including some in double rooms, but no more than two in a room.
There will be a particular emphasis on sanitizing common spaces.
In general, he said, there will be a lot more sanitization.
Just as faculty who have heightened risk of COVID-19 can apply to work from home, students who feel they cannot come back to campus will have options to continue. “We will try to find some alternative approaches,” Rogers said.
He said the university will likely offer more online classes.
At this point, the enrollment picture for BGSU is looking promising. An expected decline in enrollment has been one of the unknowns in the financial picture.
While fewer students, about 3.5 percent, have made room deposits compared to previous years, fewer have also said they will not attend in fall.
Student retention rates are “as high as they’ve ever been,” Rogers said, and graduate school enrollment is up.
BGSU may have enrollment akin to what it has had last year.
Move in will be more phased than usual. With first year students arriving over three days, starting Aug. 19.
No decision has been made on winter graduation, though Rogers indicated that given students will have been away since late November, a traditional graduation will not be held.
Still to be decided is how sports and arts events will be handle. The university will do everything to offer those in some form, Rogers said. “Those are such a major component to the collegiate experience.”
In all of this, he said, “adaptability” is key.
