OSHKOSH, WI (WTAQ) – UW-Oshkosh is among several university campuses announcing their plans for returning to campus this fall.
“Large lectures will most likely go online. We’ll be doing a teaching technique called high-flex, which is essentially the professors will work on both a face to face model as well as an online model simultaneously…It’s a lot of extra work for our faculty, but I know that they’re up to it,” says Chancellor Andy Leavitt, “If a student can’t come to campus because either they’re ill or they’re concerned about an underlying health issue, they should be able to take the courses online.”
But asks, distancing, and online learning will be just part of the different experience at UW-Oshkosh this upcoming semester. Adjusted and alternative-learning style classes won’t be the only places students will see changes.
“We are going to return to campus and have campus based activities, ranging from instruction, of course – residence halls will be open, we’ll have dining services,” Leavitt says, “It’s certainly not gonna look like business as usual but we want to do is open the campus – all 3 campuses – in such a way that we could be safe while at the same time provide students some campus based experiences.”
The vast majority of residence hall space, however, is the type with community bathrooms. Therefore, the same level of risk arises whether there is single or double occupancy in the rooms. But if someone does become ill, there is a plan in place.
“To make sure that we’ve got some guidelines in place that will keep people as safe as possible,” Leavitt tells WTAQ News, “We will have an empty residence hall the we can use for quarantine and isolation in the event that a student becomes sick or needs to be quarantined for 2 weeks.”
As for the open dining halls, more options will be made available to avoid students packing into the common areas like sardines.
“We will have that sort of distributed dining model, plus the ability to pick up or have food delivered. We want to try to move people away from each other with social distancing certainly all across campus, but particularly in the in the dining halls,” Leavitt says.
Another major piece of the undergrad college experience revolves around social gatherings like sporting events. So far, the WIAC hasn’t made any drastic decisions on keeping or canceling fall seasons.
“That will be a decision that will be made much later. We just need to know more before we can make the decision to put our athletes in competition and make sure that they’re safe,” Leavitt says, “We are closely monitoring the situation. We’ve asked the AD’s to put together a plan to see what it would look like to return to athletics in the fall.”
The school will request every student, staff, and faculty member take the Titans Safety promise – which will clearly outline expectations for keeping everyone on campus safe.
