Ohio State back with ‘reactivated’ campus
In a matter of days, thousands of Ohio State students will once again tromp across the Oval and the bells at Orton Hall will ring in the new school year.
Returning Buckeyes will notice some of last year’s COVID-19 protocols still in place for this school year, but students will also see more aspects of prepandemic campus life returning this semester.
Buckeyes can expect a “reactivated” campus experience this fall, said Melissa Shivers, senior vice president of student life.
Here is some of what she said:
Some COVID-19 protocols stay
One part of campus life that will definitely remain in place this semester are COVID-19 protocols for students, staff and faculty members.
With cases on the rise in Franklin County, masks are required for everyone at Ohio State — including visitors — on its campuses, inside medical facilities and on public transportation, regardless of their vaccination status.
Masks are required in the common areas of residence halls. Students don’t have to wear a mask inside their dorm rooms, though, unless many students are congregating.
Arrival and surveillance testing for COVID-19 will also continue this fall, but there will be some changes for vaccinated Buckeyes.
All students living in university housing on any Ohio State campus, as well as sorority and fraternity members on the Columbus campus, must complete an at-home COVID-19 test within seven days before they return to school. All Columbus campus students are required to be tested for COVID-19 at Jesse Owens North Recreation Center when they arrive. Until students receive a negative test result, they’re asked to wear a mask indoors and outdoors.
“As (athletic director) Gene Smith likes to say, we want to know what our playing field looks like for our positivity rate,” Shivers said at the board of trustee’s Academic Affairs and Student Life
Committee meeting Wednesday.
For vaccinated students attending the Columbus campus or living in university housing on any campus, COVID-19 testing will be required once a month or less. Unvaccinated students will be tested once a week or more. Ohio State students, faculty and staff members also are no longer required to complete the daily health check when they’re well.
“We pay very close attention to the science locally and nationally, and we will be able to make decisions based on what we know,” Shivers said.
More in-person classes, return to a traditional academic calendar
Students will be in the physical classroom much more this fall than last year.
Trevor Brown, OSU’S executive dean of the professional colleges, told the committee that 2020’s spring semester was a “mad sprint” to get everything online. Since then, the university has been slowly migrating more classes back to in person.
Brown said more than 75% of students report that all or most of their fall semester classes will be in person.
At least 75% of classes will be taught in person this fall. Classes with 100 students or fewer will be at full capacity, and classes with more than that will be at 75% capacity or be held in a hybrid format with lectures online and labs in person.
Ohio State will go back to using its traditional academic calendar, Brown said. That includes all the typical fall, winter and spring academic breaks.
Professors will also move back to using a traditional academic grading scale this semester. The university implemented a number of adjustments last
school year to give students more academic flexibility during the pandemic. That included a “pass/no pass” option for certain courses. Those options won’t be widely available this semester.
Residence hall visitors, student gatherings allowed once again
Shivers said other aspects of campus life will be returning this fall to make for a more traditional campus experience this semester.
For one, more students are returning to residence halls. Last year, the university
limited the capacity for on-campus housing to 12,000 students in order to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.
This year, 14,786 students will be living in residence halls at the Columbus campus, much closer to Ohio State’s maximum capacity.
Students living in dorms can also have guests once again. Shivers said more than half of students expressed feeling loneliness during the past school year. Part of that, she said, is because students weren’t allowed to have visitors in the dorms.
One major aspect of OSU’S Welcome
Week will return this year: the Student Involvement Fair. More than 700 student and community organizations will be stationed on the Oval from 4-7 p.m. this Sunday.
Students are also allowed to gather in groups of more than 10 people this fall. Shivers said being able to hold student gatherings and events this year will really bolster students’ academic and social lives.
“That’s really the whole purpose of the college experience,” she said. shendrix@dispatch.com @sheridan120