In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Indiana University will not hold in-person classes in the upcoming school year from Nov. 22, 2020 to Feb. 7, 2021, it announced Wednesday.
According to an announcement on the university website, school will begin on Aug. 24 as planned, and students will complete the 16-week semester on Dec. 20. However, students will not return to campus for the fall semester after Thanksgiving break, which starts Nov. 21. Spring semester technically starts Jan. 19, but in-person classes don’t begin until Feb. 8. Fall and spring breaks are canceled under the new schedule.
Fall and spring classes can be either eight, 13 or 16 weeks long for the 2020-21 academic year. The school is also adding a new winter session from Nov. 30 to Feb. 7.
According to the Indiana Daily Student, all on-campus rooms will be single-occupancy with a “rigorous exemption process” for students who request a roommate.
Last week, IU announced a partnership with IU Health to provide COVID-19 screening, testing and management services for the 140,000 faculty, staff and students at all IU campuses and facilities across the state.
IU is the latest in a handful of schools that have announced changes to their 2020-21 school year nationwide. The California State University system announced earlier in May that it will hold most of its instruction remotely this fall, though it’s not yet clear how that will impact the schools’ ability to have intercollegiate athletics. Notre Dame University has also altered its calendar in a manner similar to IU’s, though students will come back in early August and finish the fall semester in its entirety before Thanksgiving.
Last season, the Hoosiers swam at the Tennessee Invitational from Nov. 21-23 and hosted a diving invite from Nov. 22-24. There’s no word yet on how the school will handle athletics, but obviously, if students are not permitted to be on-campus while classes are online, that would be a significant hurdle to overcome for winter sports.
Indiana’s men and women both finished third at the 2020 Big Ten Championships. The men finished third at the 2019 NCAA Championships and the women finished ninth.
This is a very poorly worded headline meant to bait clicks – there will be in person classes from August to November – then again from Feb to May. There will also be an interim online “semester” in December and January. I think it’s a good compromise to make sure students get in person learning but also time away from campus in the event there are additional or prolonged covid 19 issues. Now we just have to figure out how this impacts sports – in particular swimming. This is a much more informative piece directly from IU: https://president.iu.edu/speeches/statements/2020/05-27-resuming-instruction.html
Well, it worked, because here you and I are. How did I get here again?!?
The college have to make the decision now because there are so many moving pieces. I hope they move the official swim season to the Fall. Having coached high school and college, I found kids can do amazing things in 12 weeks of training and they don’t get mentally fried from 6 months of pounding the intensity. A season might look like: start training on-campus around Labor Day and have championships either immediately before or after Thanksgiving (like the current mid-season taper meets). This might not be ideal for the extremely Top Tier athletes, but it will work for 95-99% of the college swimmers.
Better be prepared to make Lemonade out of lemons.
Yeah, no…..that type of seismic shift has much worse long-term ramifications.
Ouch
This is all well and good, but can we take a minute to appreciate how good Brendan Burns’ hair is looking these days. Mad flow.
Him and Ray just vibing with the same hair style.
This is terrible! As an IU student the university will most likely be having us take classes with 10 or more people online. As a student this puts me in an awkward position because I will have to pay for an apartment where I attend university one day a week. Side note IU’s public transportation won’t be able to adapt to social distancing because the buses are constantly full(body to body standing full). Additionally, I have already been paying rent on an empty apartment since spring break…now I will have to pay again for an empty apartment. Lastly, IU is known for its social and Greek life, so social distancing is off the table.
People don’t want to be in the same room with college students refusing to social distance: one reason why you can’t have what you want. Think long-term, not short term partying.
That’s another L for IU, it’s not even fair! They can’t even come up for air!
In case anyone is confused, I’m not against IU! They’re a great program, it is Just not able that it has not been a great week or so for their program. Sorry if that hurt some people’s feelings.
Oh the horror. Students go home after thanksgiving, have a week of online classes, and take their finals. This is a complete non-issue apart from winter sports.
“There’s no word yet on how the school will handle athletics, but obviously, if students are not permitted to be on-campus while classes are online, that would be a significant hurdle to overcome for winter sports.”
Unless they’re putting basketball in a hotel for 3 months, I think this won’t be an in issue for winter sports.
Yes thank God swimming is the same season as a money making sport. It will definitely help keep it going.
I believe the campus needs to be open for any athletics to be held. Closed campus means zero athletics. Just quoting what UCLA and Cal were talking about last week. I joked that the campus will be open but only for fall student athletes!
I don’t think they are “closing” the campus – just shifting the academic calendar to discourage students from staying on campus and dealing with a 2 week window of classes/exams after Thanksgiving. Seems like a pragmatic and balanced approach in a situation where it truly is “no win”. They are trying to preserve in person classes. The last week before finals is probably the best time to go online honestly. If it’s officially a break, student athletes should be able to stay – they do this often over Christmas break anyway. Or am I missing something?
So students WILL be on campus for most of the academic year – this seems like a good compromise with built in contingencies – I like it