Fall 2020 Reopening Plans
Dear UT Community,
Today, the university is releasing key elements of our plan for the fall semester, which will include online, hybrid and in-person learning options for students. Our goal is to create an environment that is as safe as possible for all community members, while reigniting the learning, teaching and research that make our university the world-changing place that it is.
Today’s plan provides a framework for the fall that is designed to accommodate the dynamic environment we’re facing and enable us to adapt to changes in the prevalence of COVID-19 in Austin and throughout Texas. And I know that things are changing every day.
Every person in our community has unique circumstances and concerns to contend with during this difficult time. Our faculty and staff members have stepped up to adapt courses and develop an innovative range of formats for teaching and learning, including adding additional online courses in recent weeks, and their efforts will continue throughout the summer. For students and families, we want you to have the ability to make informed choices about how you experience the fall semester, while keeping in mind that COVID-19 and its spread in Texas will continue to shape the exact ways we teach, learn, work and conduct research on and off campus. We are also reimagining student life activities, to hold them either fully or partially online or in outdoor spaces.
Below, you will find a summary of some of the significant policy decisions we have made for the fall. For an in-depth look at all of our fall planning decisions, please visit our new Protect Texas Together website, which provides specific guidance for students and families, faculty, staff and visitors and answers many frequently asked questions. This website will be updated continually throughout the summer and beyond, so please plan to refer back to it as time goes by.
- The fall 2020 semester will start August 26. In-person instruction will end November 25, the day before Thanksgiving. Most students will remain away from campus for the remainder of the semester, taking final exams online from December 7 to 16.
- Students may choose to experience the full fall semester online but should make sure to assess how this decision will affect their paths toward graduation.
- Classes will be more evenly distributed throughout the day, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Rooms will be assigned to classes so that when all students registered for a given class attend in person, no more than 40% of seats in that classroom will be occupied.
- There will be three modes of classes:
- Online — a class designed from the ground up so all students can attend the main class experience online.
- Hybrid — a class that has both in-person and remote learning elements, with the frequency of in-person learning based on instructional needs. Students may be able to take some hybrid courses on a completely remote basis, but other hybrid courses will require students to be on campus for a portion of their coursework. Specific frequency of in-person class meetings will vary by course and may be modified by departments in consultation with their deans during the semester as conditions change. The specific hybrid classes that can be taken completely online will be communicated to students in the coming weeks.
- In-person — a class for which there is at least some essential material that can be acquired only through in-person attendance.
- In many in-person and hybrid classes, lectures will be streamed and/or recorded to allow students who become ill or who need to self-isolate to keep up and continue to make progress.
- Online, hybrid and in-person courses will have the same tuition rates.
- Every course will have an instructional continuity plan, including designating a teaching partner to take over the class in the event of instructor illness or emergency.
- Wearing cloth masks at all times when inside university owned and controlled buildings will be mandatory except for:
- When alone in a private office;
- For students, when alone — or with a roommate — in an assigned dorm room;
- When eating and drinking while practicing social distancing — including in a campus dining facility; and
- When an alternative has been approved as part of the Americans with Disabilities Act or religious observance accommodation processes.
- We encourage community members to wear cloth masks outdoors.
- This summer, we will release a new app designed to help UT students, faculty and staff stay safe from COVID-19. The app will have a private diary function, allowing users to monitor symptoms and body temperature. It will also help users by providing information about available testing locations and processes.
- UT has worked with public health officials to develop a strategy for testing symptomatic community members, as well as proactively testing community members based on predictive modeling. It is our expectation that UT testing labs could process up to 1,500 tests per day during the fall, barring any disruption to the supply chain.
- University health professionals will work with Austin Public Health to conduct contact tracing for UT community members who test positive for COVID-19. Information voluntarily shared with contact tracers will follow public health privacy requirements.
- Hand hygiene products and cleaning stations will be readily available across campus, and we encourage all members of the campus community to carry personal hand sanitizing products.
Residence Halls
- All university-owned residence halls will open August 20 with a new process to safely move in. Residence halls will operate with social distancing measures and cloth mask requirements in place.
- Students with a residence hall housing contract will receive an email by July 1 notifying them of the date they can access the housing portal to select a room. Students will be required to sign a COVID-19 amendment to their housing contract.
- Most rooms in residence halls will be slated as double occupancy, with a limited number of single occupancy rooms.
- Graduate student apartments will continue operating as usual, with social distancing measures and cloth mask requirements in place.
Faculty Members
- Faculty members may choose to hold office hours on campus while adhering to campus safety and social distancing guidelines, or remotely (via Zoom or another technology solution).
- Faculty members with medical conditions or other risk factors placing them at high risk for COVID-19 can request a reasonable accommodation using the Americans with Disabilities Act process. Those who already have an arrangement with their department chair to teach online do not need to go through this process. All others can request this accommodation using this form.
- Faculty members who are assigned to teach in person but are concerned because they have a household member who is at high risk for COVID-19 may request flexible teaching arrangements using this form.
- Faculty members who are unable to work due to COVID-19-related child care or school limitations should explore flexible work processes and review leave options available under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.
Staff Members and Student Employees
- Staff members who are able to work effectively from home will continue to do so into the fall with approval from their managers.
- If an employee expresses personal concerns about a job that requires an on-campus presence, the university will use its existing flexible work processes to determine whether an alternate work arrangement is feasible.
- If a return to campus concern involves a high-risk employee, the university will use our existing Americans with Disabilities Act process. Employees interested in requesting a reasonable accommodation should review the Employee Accommodation Request form.
- Employees unable to work due to COVID-19-related child care or school limitations should explore flexible work processes and review leave options available under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.
- If you are a staff member participating in a voluntary or involuntary furlough program, please review these frequently asked questions.
- Student employees will work with their supervisors to determine their working location and expectations, whether working in person, remote or hybrid.
- We encourage supervisors and employees to work together to find solutions to address any current or future concerns that may arise.
International Travel Considerations
- The university will follow the Centers for Disease Control recommendations and U.S. State Department guidelines regarding international travelers self-quarantining before returning to campus.
- Given the likely delays for international students trying to enter the United States, graduate programs should be flexible about allowing international students to defer admission or start learning remotely, if they request it. Incoming foreign-resident non-citizens who expect to receive support for their services as TAs or GRAs should check with their departments about the availability of that support if they begin their studies from abroad.
- This summer, UT implemented a plan to reopen research activity across campus. Detailed information can be found in the Research Restart plan.
- The university is developing policies and procedures for hosting football games and other athletics events this fall pursuant to state, local and Big 12 Conference health and safety guidelines. UT expects to narrow the scenarios under consideration by the first week of August.
- We are also implementing policies and procedures to return essential coaches, athletics staff and all student-athletes to campus in the fall for practice/competition pursuant to guidance by the CDC, state and local officials and athletics and campus medical staff.
- For more information, please read the Athletics COVID-19 Policies and Procedures Manuals.
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I want to thank the hundreds of faculty members, staff members and students who have worked very hard and gone above and beyond to create our plans and get us to this point. Our work isn’t done, but I am grateful for the tremendous effort that has been shown thus far from so many dedicated Longhorns.
To the entire UT community, I look forward to seeing many of you back on campus in the fall. For those of you who stay home and learn or work remotely, just know that you will be every bit as much a part of Longhorn Nation as you have always been.
And I’ll close by saying that for generations, our university has always rallied behind a simple saying — Texas Fight. And that’s exactly what we need to do right now.
Let’s fight through this difficult period together, and let’s Protect Texas Together.
Hook ‘em,
Jay Hartzell
Interim President