Dean Palma updates: Return to State plans
I wish there was an easy way to describe everything going on as all of us are working together on the “Back to State” planning for Fall 2020. When President Barron announced on June 15 that students, faculty, and staff will be returning to campus in phases for Fall 2020, that was the culmination of weeks and weeks of contingency planning by a large team consisting of faculty, staff and administrators. While it was important to share with our community in mid-June that we are returning to campus in the fall, the pace of the planning and scope of those involved has only increased since June 15.
In order to allow for social distancing per state and federal guidelines, we are not able to have as many students in each classroom as were originally listed on the schedule for Fall. Our largest classroom, which can seat over 700 students in a normal semester, is only able to hold about 130 under social distancing guidelines. Because Gov. Tom Wolf has limited the size of large gatherings to 250, one of the first decisions that was announced was that all courses with enrollments of 250 or more had to be moved to remote instruction. Right now, every department across the entire University is looking at every single course on the books for fall — thousands of them in total — and each one is being categorized to use one of the four delivery models listed at keeplearning.psu.edu
These are remote synchronous instruction, remote asynchronous instruction, mixed mode instruction, and in-person instruction. A number of the laboratory courses in our college will be offered in-person, although with changes to their structure to accommodate safety precautions. Students are encouraged to check on the schedule of courses later in July to get an update about how their particular courses will be offered this fall because course delivery details will continue to evolve over the next few weeks.
In all of the planning I have been involved in, there has been a lot of discussion about how we can make campus feel as much like a normal semester as possible, even while wearing masks, staying separated from each other by at least 6 feet, and having reduced numbers of faculty and staff in their offices at the usual times. This has been a challenging balance to strike as “normal semester” and “social distance” are often in direct conflict. In the end, I think we all realize that Fall will be anything but a normal semester, but we are putting in place the plans for a mix of in-person and remote collaboration between students, faculty, and staff so our students can continue to make progress towards their goals – all while taking the necessary precautions help keep our campus community safe and healthy.