The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brown University are among the latest higher education institutions to release plans for how to reopen their campuses in …
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brown University are among the latest higher education institutions to release plans for how to reopen their campuses in the fall amid the coronavirus pandemic.
But neither school intends to initially open its doors to their respective, full student bodies.
In Cambridge, MIT will only allow seniors to be on campus for the fall semester — because out of all students, they have the least flexible schedules — along with a “relatively small fraction of other students whose circumstances require special consideration in terms of their safety, living conditions, visa status, or other hardship,” President L. Rafael Reif wrote in a letter to the school community Tuesday.
Classes for on-campus students will be a mix of in-person and remote instruction. Those who are off-campus will have online instruction, Reif wrote.
Administrators hope to allow freshmen, sophomores, and juniors to campus in the spring, according to MIT.
“In terms of public health, our strategy is conservative and reflects our awareness of how much we do not know about the future of the virus or the efforts to fight it,” Reif wrote. “As the pandemic continues to rage across the US, we believe our approach represents the best, most responsible way for our community to begin to resume residential education. Crucially, it preserves our capacity to make it possible for any student on campus who may develop COVID-19 to isolate in place.
