U of R plans `transitional' fall semester for students
Full return to in-person classes likely to get underway in January
The University of Regina plans to welcome back thousands of students to in-person classes this September, but the halls will still be emptier than in pre-pandemic years as the institution takes a semester to transition back to normalcy.
Exactly how many students will return to face-to-face classes in the fall is impossible to know at this point, said U of R acting provost david Gregory, but it will largely depend on student demand. Remote learning will also continue to play a large role.
“The fall term is also transitional, so it's setting the stage for a full return for January 2022,” Gregory said.
“For winter we had around 600 students (in person), so I'm anticipating a much larger number for the fall, of course, but I don't know what that will be.”
The deans of each faculty are putting together lists of which courses will be in-person and which will be online. Gregory said he is to receive those lists this week, and students registering for the fall will be able to choose their courses, knowing which are online and which are in-person, by the end of the month.
Even with fewer students, campus life will begin its return to normal activity. The limited number of access points to the campus will disappear, along with the need to present identification for contact tracing.
The computer labs, library and sports facilities will reopen. Food services will resume.
Faculty and staff will also begin returning, assuming the public health order asking anyone who can work from home to do so has lifted by then.
By the winter 2022 semester, Gregory hopes all staff and students will be able to return to campus.
“I like the notion of a transition because it allows us to reacquaint ourselves with other people in a gathering,” Gregory said.
“It'll be a psychological shift to gather people back together again.”
The faculty of kinesiology has already opted to offer a new hybrid of online and in-class learning by
The sooner we can get back to something approaching normal ... operations, the better it will be for our bottom line.
broadcasting some classes live. This means remote and in-class students will be able to take the same class at the same time. Already the remote learning spaces are filling up faster than the in-person ones, and Gregory wonders if that trend will continue.
“The students are telling us that there too, they are also being cautious,” Gregory said, adding other faculties are looking at trying this hybrid learning model.
While other universities across the country have run quickly toward a full reopening, Gregory said he is confident in the U of R's decision to move a little slower. So much of the university's planning revolves around the province's vaccine rollout plan, and he recognized a lot could still change between now and September.
Having students return to the campus will also help bolster the U of R's budget — which suffered a $13.5 million deficit during the 2020-2021 school year — with a return of revenue from items like parking and food services.
“The sooner we can get back to something approaching normal campus operations, the better it will be for our bottom line,” said U of R's interim president Thomas Chase.
Four years of guaranteed, stable funding from the provincial government is also a welcome surprise, Chase said.
In its 2021-2022 budget, the provincial government announced $678.5 million for post-secondary institutions and promised several years of stable funding, along with an additional $60 million over two years to be used for pandemic recovery and generating revenue.
Of this, the U of R will receive $108.5 million in operational funding each year for the next four years, along with an extra $5.4 million this year and next year for its own recovery and revenue diversification.