The University of Southern California plans to have a “full return” to campus this fall, with personalized classes and a residential life, President Carol L. Folt said in a letter to students Friday.
“There is good news to report,” Folt said. ‘When we come out of the holiday boom, we see encouraging trends here in Los Angeles: new cases of COVID-19 are declining … and hospitalization rates are still falling. While there are still vaccine shortages, it is expected to improve in the next few weeks. ”
A return of faculty, staff and students to campus will be accompanied by ‘multiple safeguards’, including a campus vaccination capable of vaccinating 1,200 people a week, a test program run twice a week for all undergraduate students walking, and physical distance measures and classroom reconfigurations, Folt said.
The university president said she did not plan to resume personal tuition during the spring semester, but that libraries, swimming pools and outdoor recreation areas would reopen at lower capacity. The school’s bookshop was reopened for shopping this week by appointment.
The university is also discussing the possibility of holding a personal inaugural ceremony at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for students in the 2020 and 2021 graduation ceremonies, but the capacity will be ‘extremely limited’ on such an occasion, Folt said.
USC’s announcement follows others made by California college leaders over the past few weeks. The president of the University of California, Michael V. Drake, said Thursday at a public policy institute in California that most fall education will take place in person, while the dormitory will resume as well, though not at the pre-pandemic level. California State University said in December that it plans to resume the majority of teaching in person this fall.
Leaders of both systems, however, stressed that such a yield depends in part on the widespread distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine. And the CSU has pushed back its plans slightly over the past few days, while Chico State has announced that only 20% to 30% of the courses will include personal tuition due to small classroom sizes.
At a news conference, Chancellor Joseph I. Castro, CSU, reaffirmed the plan to personally present a majority of courses across the 23 campuses this fall.
“It’s definitely going to be over 50% – I do not know if it’s going to be 70% or 80%, I have no idea yet,” Castro said. “But it will be a majority – that’s our plan. And again, this would depend on the evolution of the virus and the availability of vaccines. ”
Castro said each campus will make its own decisions about exactly how many courses are offered face-to-face versus virtually in consultation with public health officials and government guidelines.
The author of the Times, Teresa Watanabe, contributed to this report.