Fall: Online classes and single dorms a possibility

Inalettersenton Wednesday, Stanford officials outline a plan

Stanford University students will be allowed to return to campus in the fall, but most classes still will remain online as officials on Wednesday gave the first substantive glimpse at what the fall semester is expected to look like.

Top school officials announced Wednesday that the university will be starting the fall quarter with online-only classes one week early on Sept. 14, a move that will keep the university mostly empty and students at home.

The announcement from Provost Persis Drell and President Marc Tessier-Lavigne comes after a deluge of questions over the past several months from parents and students left in the dark by an administration that has been hesitant to comment and whose updates have been few and far between.

In a letter written to the Stanford community Wednesday, school officials say that “our planning is not complete” and “important decisions are yet to be made” about the overall structure for the year ahead, though it’s likely that a return to

normal remains in the distant future.

But giving a glimpse into what Stanford could look like in the fall, Drell and Tessier-Lavigne have announced that the school will limit the number of students on campus until “robust processes for testing, contact tracing and isolation” are established.

“We have an expert committee led by the dean of our School of Medicine, Lloyd Minor, that is developing recommendations for a universitywide plan that will guide these activities,” the letter says.

For now, students will be restricted from entering the 134-year-old university campus in an effort to stave off the potential for a second wave of COVID-19 infections in the fall. Shutting down midquarter and sending students home, the letter says, “would not be a desirable

outcome for anyone.”

University leaders are keenly aware of the physical distancing requirements that will have to be put in place to limit the spread of infection, a nearly impossible feat for a campus whose “classrooms and undergraduate residences do not allow for sufficient physical distancing when they are fully occupied at their regular capacity.”

Students also will be required to wear masks.

Officials also have to take into account the need for sufficient residential space to “allow students to quarantine or self-isolate on campus” should that second wave hit.

The university said in the letter that it expects “all undergraduates who are on campus to be housed in rooms that have private sleeping spaces, such as a single or a two-room double, in order to provide for sufficient physical distancing.” No details were made available about how the university will choose which students

will be allowed to live on campus.

The hope is to reduce the number of undergraduate housing spaces available in any one quarter as well as the overall number of students who are on campus at any given time.

“Our default plan is to have half of our undergraduates (that is, the equivalent of two class years) back on campus for the fall quarter and each subsequent quarter, changing each quarter,” Drell and Tessier-Lavigne said. “It may need to be a smaller number in a given quarter if health conditions require it, which we hope will not be the case; in fact, we hope that health conditions will allow us instead to be able to expand access later in the year.”

The best way that officials believe the second wave of infection could be prevented is with online coursework. Though inperson classes will be offered on campus, “Much of our undergraduate teaching will still need to be done online

in the 2020-21 year,” the letter says.

“Indeed we will need to view online as the default teaching option for 202021, to be supplemented by in-person instruction as much as is safe and feasible for students and faculty who are present on campus,” the letter reads. “

The university expects that all classes larger than 50 students will need to be taught online, although the limits could be smaller depending on local health conditions. This new rule is likely to affect mostly firstand second-year students who often take universityrequired classes in large lecture halls.

Finals exams for all undergraduates and most

graduate students will occur remotely the week after Thanksgiving.

“This will allow students who are residing on campus to travel home for Thanksgiving and remain there, rather than traveling back and forth for Thanksgiving and increasing the potential for virus spread,” the letter says. “For students unable to leave campus due to exceptional circumstances, we will have a housing program available through the winter break, with details available later this fall.”

Class times are also likely to be extended from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. “to make the best use of our classroom spaces,” and since some classes can take place only in person, those may

need to be offered multiple times as different groups of students return to campus throughout the year.

But the switch to online coursework has not been a popular one. For that reason, school officials are planning to “replicate other features of in-person teaching, such as small group interactions, academic support and peer-to-peer learning.”

“For our incoming firstyear undergraduates, we know this is not how you originally envisioned beginning your college career,” Drell and Tessier-Lavigne said. “But we will work to make the coming year as rich and rewarding an experience as possible within the constraints of this unusual time we are living through.”