Cal to Begin Fall With No In-Person Classes - It Won't Affect Football
Cal will hold no in-person classes when the fall term starts, which means all classes will be held remotely as the beginning of the semester. Chancellor Carol Christ made the announcement during a virtual event Monday hosted by the Chronicle of Higher Education, according to EdSource.org.
"However, we continue our preparations to implement hybrid and/or flexible modes of instruction as soon as public health conditions allow," high ranking Cal officials said in a letter sent to Cal faculty and staff on Tuesday, according to Berkeley News.
This decision to hold no in-person classes at the start of the fall term will have no affect on the start of fall sports at Cal, which released a statement to that effect:
While the fall semester will begin with fully remote instruction, we anticipate athletic activities to proceed in accordance with current protocols and in compliance with the Berkeley Public Health Order. Campus remains open, including student housing, with the expectation that in-person instruction will be available when public health conditions allow.
The Pac-12 has already announced that the start of fall sports, including football, will be delayed, but no starting date for a football season has been announced. When the Pac-12 announced that it would play a conference-only football schedule in 2020, it also said that details on conference-only schedules will be announced no later than July 31.
It remains uncertain whether any college football will be played this fall, and it is also unlcear whether fans will be allowed to attend games if the games are played.
Classes at Cal are schedule to start at al on August 26, which is five weeks away.
An excerpt from that letter to faculty suggests in-person classes may be available for some students at some point during the fall term:
COVID-19 is showing us that we have to be not only agile, moving quickly between degrees of openness and sometimes pulling back, but also prepared to move forward as soon as conditions allow.
This means we will keep a fully remote option open for all students but also be prepared to implement our plans for select in-person instruction activities for those students who can take advantage of them, as conditions allow, even if it is part way through a term.
If previously approved in-person instruction returns later in the semester, students will not be required to attend classes in-person—they can continue to attend classes remotely through the semester.
The possibility of in-person classes some time during the fall is one of the reasons Cal football is unlikley to be affected.
In June, Cal announced it planned to conduct limited in-person classes, but on Monday, Christ cited the recent unfavorable trends regarding COVID-19 cases as the reason for the decision.
“After weeks of developing a very elaborate plan for a hybrid model in the fall, we decided after we had a serious fraternity outbreak, that it was just too risky to teach face to face,” Christ said, according to the EdSource.org report.
Cal reported 25 cases of COVID-19 last week, according to a report by Berkleyside, and the school reported that 47 people contracted the virus the previous week following attendance at fraternity parties.
Cal athletes have had relatively few positive tests for COVID-19, with only eight athletes involved in voluntary workouts testing positive for the virus.
The UC Berkeley campus is the first in the University of California system to announce it will conduct all classes remotely at the start of the upcoming academic year. The only other UC school scheduled to open next month is UC Merced.
The seven other colleges in the UC system, including UCLA, are on the quarter schedule, and they won’t begin instruction for the 2020-21 acadmic year until Sept. 30.
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