The spring semester has brought unprecedented challenges, and change, to the California State University system. Final exams will be taken virtually, if at all. Students will graduate without a ceremony.
And university leaders acknowledged this week that the 23 campuses and roughly 500,000 students who make up the system will have to do it all over again in the fall.
“Our university, when open in-person without restrictions, is a place where over 500,000 people come together in close and vibrant proximity with each other on a daily basis,” Chancellor Timothy White told the CSU board of trustees in a Zoom meeting Tuesday. “That approach, sadly, just isn’t in the cards now.”
Classes for the upcoming fall semester will be “primarily offered virtually,” White said, with “limited exceptions for in-person activities.”
The decision makes CSU among the first and the largest university systems in the nation to make definitive plans for the next academic year. It would be irresponsible for the schools not to prepare for the worst, White said, though he left open the possibility for more on-campus learning if the threat of the coronavirus substantially subsides.
“There are some people today who say we are moving too far and too fast in our planning,” White said. “I acknowledge and respect that point of view, but we sit with a different reality.”
Possible exceptions to virtual learning offerings, White said, included clinical classes with training mannequins for nursing students; essential physical and life science lab classes; access to unique facilities for students in the performing arts; and hands-on capstone projects.
“Anything done on campus this fall won’t be done as it was in the past,” White said. “It will be different.”
Leaders on individual campuses made similar announcements. In a letter posted online Tuesday, San Francisco State University President Lynn Mahoney wrote that she did not want to keep students and faculty guessing about what to expect after the summer.
“With the health of our students and employees uppermost in my mind, I have made the very hard decision to continue with predominantly remote instruction through the fall semester,” Mahoney wrote.
It’s been nearly two months since the Cal State system implemented virtual learning for the remainder of the spring semester, to mixed reviews. Cal State University and the University of California have drawn criticism — and a lawsuit — for continuing to charge campus-based student fees despite them being shut down.
In his remarks Tuesday, White committed to offering a “rich and meaningful learning experience” and discouraged students from pausing their educations but made no mention of tuition or fees for an all-virtual fall 2020.
Other large Bay Area universities are in the midst of developing multiple contingency plans for fall instruction. The University of California system is “planning for a wide range of possibilities,” but officials have said that students should expect continued changes in the fall semester.
“At this juncture, it’s likely none of our campuses will fully reopen in fall. We are exploring a mixed approach with some instruction delivered in classroom and lab settings while other classes will be primarily online,” UC spokesperson Claire Doan said. “The health, well being and safety of our community is of utmost importance. Our campuses will reopen for on-site instruction when it is safe to do so — in alignment and coordination with federal, state and local health departments and authorities.”
Last week, UC Berkeley announced three “scenarios,” ranging from full remote instruction to limited in-person courses and finally, to the resumption of normal activity with accommodations for those who still need to work remotely. Which scenario is employed, the school said, hinges on public health guidelines and advisories.
“The decisions that we make will be shaped by what’s happening beyond the campus, what’s happening with the pandemic,” University Chancellor Carol Christ said during a “Campus Conversation” address posted online Monday. “We’re certainly subject to all public health requirements, and of course we would want to be observant of those requirements.”
At Stanford University, Provost Persis Drell headlined a school letter Tuesday outlining how the fall semester will likely play out, describing a potential hybrid arrangement of in-person and remote instructional and campus activities. Officials had said as recently as late April they were weighing the possibility of delaying the fall term until the winter of 2021.
In the Tuesday letter, signed by Drell and three vice provosts, they outlined their work to try and preserve parts of the on-campus living experience they have made essential to the on-boarding process for incoming freshmen.
That includes prospective plans to reduce on-campus housing density, regimenting physical distancing, potentially spreading the instructional year over the entire calendar year including the summer, and limiting off-campus travel. The provosts also stated that face masks, social distancing, and avoiding large gatherings will be the campus norm.
“The net effect is that we cannot expect a normal academic year in 2020-21,” the letter reads. “It will be a year of change and adaptation.”
Mahoney, the SF State president, said her campus remains too vulnerable to resume normal operations absent a COVID-19 vaccine and a dramatic increase in available testing and personal protective equipment, especially with a second wave of the virus anticipated in a consensus of public-health and medical experts.
“I want nothing more than for us all to stay well and be together. The COVID-19 pandemic sadly, however, does not allow us to have both … for now,” Mahoney wrote. “I promise you that this will end and that we will all return to campus. For now, though, we will focus our attention on perfecting remote learning, teaching and working. It will not be the same, but it will be good.”
