Universities returning

[Joneseygirl77]

Does anyone have ideas on how and when universities plan to return?
Obviously most will start back in September but the last term has been solely online.
Is this likely to continue given we’re down to 1m from next month and schools will be going back?

The university I work at, lectures will be on mine but small groups and lab work will be in person.

We go back October but that plan has been in place for a couple of months.

October as usual. Face to face labs and tutorials. Lectures online, for the first term at least.

Yes, as others have said, we are planning most of term one teaching to be online, definitely lectures but with some small group face to face practical sessions for those who are physically on campus. Some overseas students will not want to travel to the UK, and even some UK students may wish to continue living at home, so there will be opportunities for them to join in virtually with anything happening face to face in some way (even if asynchronous). I think there are still too many things up in the air that universities can't plan to go totally online or totally face to face because everything is changing so rapidly. Doing the last part of this year online in a slap dash way has been a nightmare.

If you or a family member is already at university they will have had some kind of communication by now. The info for DD's university is on the website. Her university is doing a phased return from 5th October, with all online lectures, social distancing for seminars and full PPE for labs.

Another one where space on campus has been prioritised for labs and everything else expected to continue reasonably remotely (definitely no large group teaching) until January. Trying also to keep Security and cleaners as safe as possible by not overloading with people and also not having usual access in all/most areas enabled on swipe passes.

For us term will start as usual in September. We are making sure all groups/cohorts have some on campus teaching which will be supplemented with timetabled remote learning.
Campus is being divided into zones with one way systems and staff will still be working from home where possible to reduce the number of people on campus at once.

We are lectures on line, small group session and labs face to face. All students at least 4 hours face to face a week (obviously much lower than normal hours).

We're starting in September as planned but the majority of classes will be online with the exception of practicals that require the Media labs, Sports Science lab, etc. We're expecting this to be the case until semester 2.

As a member of (office) staff, we should be getting an email later this week confirming we'll be working from home until January. I half expected it but am gutted - another 6 months out of the office...

What everyone else said! We're still planning (and spending £££) on our distance learning delivery model - don't forget there may well be a second spike and we cannot guarantee that the current easing of the rules won't be reversed.

It is interesting - OfS put a lot of pressure on universities to give students 'as much certainty as possible about what the new year will look like'. I've always wondered if April/May's conception of October will look a bit silly by the time it comes around and I increasingly think it will - given all the easing at the moment all this talk of 'online fresher's weeks' etc starts to look quite out of date. Most (all?) universities have built their teaching plans around 2m social distancing and I would guess a lot will want to reconsider as it will be so much easier to have more than a token amount of face to face teaching with a 1m rule. But maybe they won't, because they'll want to visibly take every precaution possible. I don't know, and I think that's the dilemma a lot of senior management teams will be facing - do you go very cautious and risk making yourself look unattractive to prospective students, who largely seem to want as much 'normality' as possible, or do you embrace the easing and risk looking reckless and also creating a big problem for yourself if things tighten up again?

We're starting in September with a mixed delivery - some staff and some students won't be safe face to face (underlying conditions, age, immuno-suppressed, international etc etc) so we're having to deliver both on-lne and in person.

In person teaching will be socially distanced, in very large rooms, no big lectures, and a very extended timetable, with some student group work timetabled for evenings and weekends - this will not be directly taught by staff, but supervised by them.

Academic staff have had all research leave cancelled, all research travel expenses and travel stopped, and will have much extended teaching timetables.

We are going to have to be ready to pivot to totally on-line if there's another spike and/or lockdown - both of which are entirely possible.

Freshers' flu is a thing - but this time it's literally deadly.

I would guess a lot will want to reconsider as it will be so much easier to have more than a token amount of face to face teaching with a 1m rule

There's a lot of quite disturbing data emerging about survival rates for those over 50, and those over 60, in comparison with those aged 18-40. A lot of staff will not be safe with fairly irresponsible teenagers/early 20s without proper social distancing , and preferably everyone in face masks.

I love my job, but I'm not sure I want to die because an 18 year old did not make a good risk assessment of his risk to others, and decides that his fun was more important than my health ...

Thanks all.
Yes I did wonder if the online learning for the first term might put some students off. I know some universities have struggled over the past few years and wondered if they were keen to avoid online learning if possible in case it affected student numbers especially with overseas students.
Also wondering if social distancing/ lack of F2F contact will have an impact upon mental health of freshers- mainly for those living away from home for first time and struggling with isolation of not being able to attend lectures/ social events etc.

Our university seems similar to other mentioned. We are planning large groups lectures to be online but clinical skills and small groups face to face. We have been told to schedule brace to face for all students as much as we can safely.

Same for us, no large lectures but some element of face to face learning on campus but with most content delivered on line. Non academic staff to work from home where possible to minimise the number of people on campus. Things are changing so often though that it is difficult to predict what will happen in September/October though.

Does anyone know are placements going ahead?

For my course we're delaying placements until after Christmas.
It will very much depend on the course through