ECU announces calendar and plans for spring semester. What’s missing? Spring break.
East Carolina University will bring students and faculty back to Greenville as scheduled in the spring for a mix of in-person, hybrid and online classes.
Those classes will start as scheduled on Jan. 19 and end on April 27, but there will not be a spring break, the university announced Wednesday. It’s a later start date than previous years at ECU, and the days typically used for spring break will make up for the later start.
ECU said this calendar was created over the summer with guidance from health officials who warned of the possibility of a second wave of the coronavirus in late fall and early winter.
Spring commencement is scheduled for May 7 and the university will decide whether that ceremony will be in-person or virtual again in the spring semester. The decision will be based on guidance from health officials about large gatherings.
“We will be back for spring,” ECU interim Chancellor Ron Michelson said in a video message to the campus community. “And you’ll see some of the same things that we’ve put in place for safety during the fall semester.”
That includes physical distancing, mandatory face masks and a reduced number of students in dorms and in academic buildings, he said.
ECU said it will also work to allow any student who wants to take courses remotely to do so. The duration of classes will return to the normal 15-week semester, and registration starts Nov. 9.
Mitchelson said he is still working with faculty, staff, students, the UNC System, and county and state health officials to plan for the spring. And those plans might be adjusted, as they were in the fall, depending on the behavior of the coronavirus pandemic and persistence of COVID-19, he said.
UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State are also making plans for students and faculty to be on campus this spring, despite the spikes in cases that forced each of the universities to go remote this fall.
ECU pivoted to online undergraduate classes in August, after reporting multiple COVID-19 clusters in residence halls in the first two weeks of the fall semester. ECU reported more than 1,000 COVID-19 cases this fall, but the cases that university medical staff are aware of all have been fairly mild, according to the director of ECU Student Health Services.
There was no community spread in ECU classrooms, office spaces, student center or restrooms, according to an analysis by ECU’s Dr. LaNika Wright and her team in Student Health Services. There were also very low levels of infection among staff members, including in campus housing and dining facilities, according to the university.
However, COVID-19 spread easily and quickly at social gatherings where safety rules weren’t followed and in residence halls and Greek Life housing, Mitchelson said.
The university saw an initial surge of cases that overwhelmed its capacity for isolation and quarantine. It will increase the number of rooms for isolation and quarantine on campus.
ECU reported more than 500 student cases in six days, including nearly 125 new cases in one day. Since that peak and the university’s changes to campus operations this fall, the average number of confirmed new student cases has dropped to fewer than six per day.
Most students moved out of dorms this fall when the university switched to remote instruction, but students will be able to live on campus in single rooms this spring. Freshmen will not be required to live on campus next semester.
ECU will also expand COVID-19 testing and is developing a vaccination plan for students if a COVID-19 vaccine becomes available.
This story was originally published October 7, 2020 at 6:37 PM.
