LEXINGTON, Ky — The University of Kentucky is officially holding in-person classes this fall.
The semester will be streamlined from August 17 — with no major breaks — until Thanksgiving.
Executives aim to keep the students hunkered down on campus and get them home before a potential second wave of the coronavirus; one college leaders and virus experts say could hit the US by Christmas.
"That's exactly right," said Eric Monday, UK's Executive VP of Finance & Administration, Tuesday. "I think the other thing is to ensure that we can focus on academic delivery — that in-person experience — and not have a lot of breaks where people can go back home."
College students are likely the most wired among us to be socially close. With roughly 30,000 enrolled, UK’s so-called “playbook” lists plans to keep young adults responsibly apart.
“We’re all gonna be wearing masks, so, whether that’s the president down to all members of our community we will be wearing that mask, we will be modeling that behavior,” Monday continued. “...As it relates to social distancing, you’re gonna see signage, you’re gonna see appropriate spacing; you’re gonna see different capacities of all of our lecture halls, all of our dining halls.”
Even with these measures, a small city's worth of young adults in a confined campus is nearly certain to produce multiple positive tests. UK plans to test each student when they arrive on campus, strongly recommend each student conduct regular "self-checks," and a residence hall has been set aside as a quarantine building, where students can isolate and wait out their infection.
Monday said bringing classes to online-only was one of the initial proposals, but canceling an entire semester was never on the table. We asked if students have shown a desire to themselves skip the semester.
"A couple of months ago, I think we saw a lot of data — not specific to UK — but to college students; specifically recent high school graduates or high school seniors; they talked about it; 'I’m gonna take a gap year. I’m gonna do different things.' What we’ve seen in the last couple months is a pretty strong change in that."
Beyond health, the coronavirus has crippled the employment and savings of millions of Americans. Monday claims the school has given out $8.9 million in funding to students through the recent Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act and increased its scholarship budget by “several millions of dollars.” UK also plans to increase tuition by one percent. Monday claims that’s the lowest annual increase at the school in more than 35 years.
Kentucky is far from the only school returning to campus; with an oft-stated yearning to educate and a less stated need for cash flow. Time will tell if America’s most social generation can keep each other safe in their pursuits in and out of the class room.