Faculty Senate discusses the future for Ohio U in Phase 2 of return

Faculty senate gathers for their monthly meeting. Photo by Jordan Ellis.

Ohio University Faculty Senate discussed plans for the coming weeks before the second phase of a student return to campus at their meeting Monday night. 

Ohio U announced last week that about 7,200 students were going to be invited back to the Athens campus for a second round of reopening, according to a previous report from The New Political.

The university has partnered with OhioHealth and CVS in an effort to keep the student population informed on the number of coronavirus cases in the campus community and to aid in providing testing for students. 

Gillian Ice, a professor and the director of global health in the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, said Ohio U may start random testing to help determine students who are symptomatic and asymptomatic for contact tracing efforts.

Ohio U's administration also began discussions on what spring semester will look like, but no final decisions have been made. 

Faculty senators raised questions on how Ohio U’s spring semester may shape up in terms of students on campus.

“Unless we can have a vaccine, there will be an upper limit of who we can invite back as housing goes,” Ice said. “We will make decisions from a public health point of view based on what we see happen this fall.”

Recently, Ohio State University announced that there will be no spring break for their students this year in an effort to limit travel-related exposure to COVID-19, according to the student newspaper, The Lantern. 

In response to a question regarding OSU’s decision, Executive Vice President and Provost Elizabeth Sayrs said, “We are looking at a lot of possibilities and will be asking for a calendar recommendation from the Academic Policy and Planning group.”