Plans on UA’s fall term still in works

Faculty told decision about six weeks off

FAYETTEVILLE — Planning for the coming fall term at the University of Arkansas involves considering various possibilities, including “another semester of online-only education,” said Chancellor Joe Steinmetz.

UA suspended in-person classes March 12, a day after state officials announced the first presumptive covid-19 case in Arkansas. Online-only classes at UA will continue through Aug. 3, officials have said.

“We are working on what exactly is the trigger for us reopening, and of course that’s going to require some guidance from the state along with some other things,” Steinmetz told faculty members Thursday in a video talk.

A decision on whether to resume in-person classes likely is to come in about six weeks, Steinmetz said.

“I would say that decision

would probably be made around June 1,” Steinmetz said. “I think we’d have to know by then what the prospect actually looks like for the fall.”

But Steinmetz added that “if it looks like we still don’t have enough information, I would try to push that a little bit later.”

Fall semester classes are scheduled to begin Aug. 24. Before the coronavirus outbreak, early move-in dates for campus housing were set to begin Aug. 12, according to UA’s website.

Planning will involve looking at “if we were 100% open, maybe partially open, or another semester of online-only education,” Steinmetz said.

“What if the contingency is yes, you can get up and going again, but you must maintain social distancing?” he said.

Such a possibility might involve seat coverings in classrooms to keep students spaced apart, and it also could involve Saturday class sessions to reduce student numbers in a classroom, he said.

“Everything’s open and on the table right now,” Steinmetz said.

Asked if the decision would be made in Fayetteville or involve the university’s board of trustees, Steinmetz laid out how the process has worked for other recent decisions.

“We just make a case of why that works here,” Steinmetz said, adding that campuses in the UA System are “slightly different.”

“I think there will be system solutions but greatly influenced by what we do here,” Steinmetz said.

Enrollment projections for the fall are based on details like sign-ups for freshman orientation and the number of campus housing deposits, Steinmetz said.

The “best guess right now is probably we’d be about constant with our enrollment as we were a year ago,” Steinmetz said.

He added: “I would be very happy if that happened given the uncertainty there is right now.”

The total fall 2019 enrollment for UA was 27,559 students, according to the state Division of Higher Education, down from 27,778 students a year earlier. The enrollment dip was the first since the 1990s and came about in part because of a decline in firstyear students.

Steinmetz in his talk referred to a memorandum of understanding to be considered by the Fayetteville City Council that would provide quarantine housing to city police officers and firefighters exposed to covid-19, adding that there were similar talks with county officials.

He said the university also has been in talks with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“We’ve offered the use of Bud Walton Arena, as well as the Barnhill [Arena] and some other areas around campus as temporary hospital sites if that was needed,” Steinmetz said.

Discussing the university’s role as an employer during the pandemic, Steinmetz said, “I’m very happy and proud that we’ve been able to pay everybody through this entire ordeal, so nobody has been laid off.”

UA is set to receive approximately $15 million from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, which is divided into two pieces, including about $7.5 million for students.

“There were general guidelines, but we have more questions than we have answers about what we can give students money for, what we can’t, what’s included, what isn’t,” Steinmetz said.

The additional $7.5 million is to go to the campus to reimburse for costs related to the coronavirus, but “we have absolutely no guidance on this at the present time from the federal government, and actually they haven’t released that money yet,” Steinmetz said.

The state cut about $8.2 million, or roughly 4%, from UA’s expected allocation for the fiscal year ending June 30, Steinmetz said. The university covered this deficit “centrally” through reserves and internal revenue without having colleges or units give back money already budgeted, Steinmetz said.

Steinmetz said the coming fiscal year will have at least a $6 million reduction in state funding compared with the amount allocated for UA in fiscal 2020. But further slackening of state revenue would result in a deeper funding cut total of “as much as $18 million,” he said.

“We’re confident” a $6 million cut can be handled by UA in a way that “preserves our excellence as well as preserves our momentum moving forward,” Steinmetz said.