Columbia University, Duke University and the University of California at Los Angeles will start with remote classes in January, part of a growing number of colleges choosing a temporary pivot online as coronavirus cases rise and the omicron variant spreads nationally.
Other schools chose a variety of approaches to try to slow the spread of the virus after the winter break. Columbia announced Wednesday that the first two weeks of classes will be virtual, a move that applies to all classes, whether they start on the most common date, Jan. 18, or earlier in the month. Duke announced that most classes from Jan. 5 to 8 would be remote, but in-person classes are expected to resume Jan. 10. UCLA classes will start Jan. 3 as planned, but the first two weeks will be held remotely and students were told to return to campus by Jan. 9 for testing.
In the nation’s capital, George Washington University also said Wednesday that it would begin the next term virtually, and anticipates a return to full in-person activities on Jan. 18.
“The rapid spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 has upended our holiday celebrations and will continue to require our vigilance and flexibility in order to protect the health and safety of our community,” Duke officials wrote to the campus community Wednesday. “We have faced these uncertainties and challenges before, and, thanks to your dedication, we have been able to continue our vital missions of education, research and service to society. Now we must do so again.”
Syracuse University announced Wednesday that it will delay the start of its spring semester by a week, to Jan. 24, with its chancellor citing rising cases, omicron’s spread and “warnings from public health officials that the first three weeks of January will be the most challenging of this surge.”
Syracuse had announced earlier this month that coronavirus vaccine booster shots would be required by the start of the spring semester, or as soon as people are eligible. “Vaccinations were key to our ability to enjoy a robust in-person fall semester,” Syracuse Chancellor Kent Syverud told the campus community in a letter Wednesday. “Booster shots will be critical to maintaining that same experience for the spring semester.”
As the fall semester wound down this month, a number of colleges moved final exams online, canceled commencement programs or other events, and instituted other changes on campus to try to stem the spread of the coronavirus. Now, many schools have turned their attention to the upcoming term.
Some schools, such as Northwestern University and Stanford University, had already announced that they would temporarily switch to virtual instruction in early January. At Harvard University, where spring classes begin later in the month, school officials said most learning and work in the first three weeks of January will be done remotely.
On Tuesday, the University of California’s president, Michael V. Drake, wrote to the UC system chancellors to warn that the fast-moving omicron variant, combined with holiday gatherings and student travel, would create public health challenges. Drake asked each of them to design a plan for their January return.
Multiple UC system schools announced Tuesday that they plan to start the next term remotely. In addition to UCLA, the University of California at San Diego, UC-Irvine, UC-Santa Barbara and UC-Riverside say they’ll hold all or most classes virtually for the first two weeks of the winter quarter.
UC-Davis will open virtually for a few days starting Jan. 3 to allow people time to get a negative test before coming to class or work in person on Jan. 10. The campus remains a safe place, university leaders said Tuesday.
“Although it is too soon to say definitively, it now seems possible that the spread of the Omicron variant may signal that the virus is attenuating, meaning that it is becoming more transmissible and less deadly,” Gary May, the UC-Davis chancellor, and Mary Croughan, the provost and executive vice chancellor, wrote in a message to the campus community Tuesday. “Regardless, we continue to monitor the situation closely and will change our safety protocols accordingly.”
UC-Berkeley, which begins most classes later than the UC schools on a quarter system, said Wednesday that classes are expected to resume in-person, even those that begin earlier than Jan. 18. University leaders said plans could change, but at this point they expect to rely on three primary strategies — increased vaccination, increased testing and continuation of an indoor mask requirement — rather than a switch to remote instruction or large-scale cancellation of in-person activities.
Meanwhile, faculty and students at some other schools are asking whether more caution is needed at their colleges when classes resume after the holidays.
The University of North Carolina’s faculty executive committee called a special meeting for Thursday “to discuss spring semester plans in light of pandemic developments.”
Online petitions have popped up asking schools to do more testing, to make decisions about remote learning more quickly, or to provide students a virtual option in January.
Some students dreading a return to remote learning and the isolation of 2020 have pushed back with alternative petitions.
At the University of Michigan, more than 800 faculty, students and other members of the university community signed on to a letter asking leaders to reconsider plans for the upcoming semester amid the rapidly worsening pandemic, urging them to delay the start of in-person classes by at least two weeks, until after mid-January.
John Carson, an associate professor of history at the University of Michigan, said he had lived through the incredibly disruptive rapid switch to virtual classes in the spring of 2020 — and hopes to avoid that kind of last-minute scrambling. “We have the ability to be flexible, to rethink things, rather than suddenly having to transform everything” if there’s an outbreak, he said.
University of Michigan officials announced changes last week, including requiring a coronavirus vaccine booster of all students, faculty and staff, and mandating that students must wear a mask in common areas of their dorms through at least mid-January. In-person classes are expected to resume Jan. 5.
“We continue to monitor the situation,” Kim Broekhuizen, a spokeswoman for the university, wrote in an email, “and consider advice from local and national experts and compare our circumstances and approaches to those of other similar universities.”
