CHICOPEE - The administration at Elms College has been working thoroughly to come up with a plan that will allow students to return to classes in person, in the fall.
"We are moving on a path where we will be ready to go back in late August,” said Walter Breau, Ph.D, Vice President of Academic Affairs.
The college said the safety of their staff and students is the first priority. In order to reopen, they made sure they were following guidelines put in place by the state and following recommendations from the CDC.
"We are very mindful of the statistics across the nation,” said Harry Dumay, Ph.D., MBA, Elms College President.
Dumay said although ways of interacting on campus are changing, the college’s mission is still the same. He said they are dedicated to providing the same education to their students, even if things will be different for the upcoming semester.
"We see this another opportunity to rise to the occasion and continue to provide the service that elms has provided to students for 9 decades now,” said Dumay.
Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, classes went remote in the spring. After time and consideration, Elms College came up with a reopening plan to allow students the opportunity to be on campus.
"Even that it'll be done with students who may for various health conditions, not comfortable in the classroom, we will provide maximum flexibility for students in a method we call the ElmsFlex,” Dumay explained.
The ElmsFlex Model has been around since 2011. It gives students the ability to be home when they need to but also have the accessibility to get face to face learning in the classroom.
"I think it’s a more important model for the fall because of the need to keep the environment safe because of the reduced capacity in our classrooms,” said Breau.
In case there’s another surge of the virus, because the model is flexible, they have the ability to easily move learning to a virtual method. Breau and Dumay said the virtual learning in this model is exactly the same as what students would get in the classroom, so it’s still giving students the opportunity to further their education.
Students who choose to come back to campus in the fall will undergo a health screening. There will be smaller class sizes and social distancing measures in place. Face masks will be worn by faculty and students when social distancing isn’t possible. The college also stated extra cleaning will take place.
"ElmsFlex Model is student directed and gives students maximum options, but we couldn't do it without the support of our faculty and instructors who are working, they've been working hard since we went remote in the spring to be ready to serve our students as well as we can,” said Breau.
Also all students who chose to reside here in the fall will not have roommates. All the rooms in their three residence halls will be single occupancy. More information can be found here: https://www.elms.edu/reopening/plan-details.