Today: Mar 29, 2024

Online classes and university efforts keep cases down

Jessica GuerrucciEditor-in-Chief

It has been just over one month since we’ve returned to campus and online learning is in full swing, but many students still don’t necessarily know how it all breaks down.

The university has constructed a four-point plan that we’ve followed during our return. Some may have read it while others may not even know at all. However, it paints a better picture of what our campus really looks like this semester.

According to the plan, 840 class sections, or 36 percent, are operating in an on-ground or hybrid mode. The other 64 percent includes 1491 class sections that are entirely online, synchronous or asynchronous.

Of those percentages, the College of Education has 72.7 percent of its classes online, the highest of the four colleges. That is followed by the School of Business at 67.6 percent, the College of Health and Human Services at 66 percent and lastly, the College of Arts & Science at 58.6 percent.

What does this all mean? Can education students learn better online than someone focusing on arts and sciences? Maybe. Is one more applied than the other? I’m sure there’s lots of factors that went into these decisions that are beyond me.

As for how room capacity is determined for on-ground classes, it had prototypes ready that were prepared with seating layouts to derive an estimated space per seat for general purpose classrooms, lecture halls, labs and studios using the six-foot spacing requirements.

How much of this are students and professors actually following?

Plexiglas is placed in the Student Center where students cannot maintain six-foot distance, but no one is there to stop anyone from sitting on the same side of the table or other students pulling up chairs as far as I’ve seen.

The document also includes floor plans to direct one-way traffic in buildings that have heavy foot traffic, but you can watch several students entering through the exit door without a care in the world. Does it matter?

This university is doing everything they can and this plan and the division between online and hybrid classes has contributed to our lowering COVID-19 rate and working to ensure that we can operate in a somewhat normal way.

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