As the Pfizer vaccine for COVID-19 begins to roll out to states, many in the higher ed sector and beyond are beginning to look forward to some sense of normalcy.
The University of Florida (UF), for example, is planning to offer roughly the same number of in-person class sections as the institution offered in the spring of 2020, before the pandemic hit.
“It’s not a small number of students who have expressed an interest in getting the in-person experience,” says Steve Orlando, UF’s assistant vice president for communications. “… Because they have interest, we think it’s important to provide that experience for them.”
Orlando says roughly 40% of UF undergrads who have registered for classes for the spring are taking at least one in-person class. In-person class capacity is being reduced by 80%; the remainder of students will receive synchronous instruction online. Classes will be physically distanced, with students six feet apart and professors up to 11 feet from the students, and masks are mandatory inside all university buildings. All faculty members will be provided with five N-95 masks and some disposable masks to hand out to students who may have forgotten theirs. There will be hand sanitizer located in every classroom, which will be cleaned daily.
“Our president, Kent Fuchs, has said, as the pandemic has progressed, that his approach is that we need to learn to live and study and work through the pandemic,” Orlando says. “We are trying to figure out the best ways to do that while keeping our students, staff and faculty safe. We feel like with the safeguards we have in place, what we’ve learned, we can do this” in partnership with UF Health and strong adherence to Centers for Disease Control guidance.
Orlando says about 200 of the university’s roughly 5,000 faculty members have expressed concern and requested accommodations, with most requesting to be able to continue teaching remotely. Though not all will be able to remain fully remote, Orlando says the university did grant some form of accommodation to all faculty members who have requested it, and some have received additional personal protective equipment.
