{"id":20053,"date":"2020-06-26T11:16:02","date_gmt":"2020-06-26T15:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/?p=20053"},"modified":"2020-06-26T11:16:02","modified_gmt":"2020-06-26T15:16:02","slug":"esu-announces-re-opening-of-campus-for-fall-2020-semester-on-august-31","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/esu-announces-re-opening-of-campus-for-fall-2020-semester-on-august-31\/","title":{"rendered":"ESU Announces Re-Opening Of Campus For Fall 2020 Semester on August 31"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>East Stroudsburg University President Marcia G. Welsh, Ph.D. announced today that students, faculty and staff will return to campus for the Fall 2020 semester, following months of remote instruction and operations due to the activity of the COVID pandemic. Classes will begin on Monday, August 31 at 8 a.m. with the intention to follow our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esu.edu\/academics\/calendar\/fall20.cfm\">current academic calendar<\/a> for Fall 2020 but are prepared to change academic instruction quickly if necessary.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cESU has never been closed,\u201d stated President Welsh, \u201cbut we took every precaution and followed guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH), the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE), and the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) in order to keep our students, employees and their families safe.\u00a0 We continue to take similar measures in bringing everyone back in August.\u00a0To start, all students, faculty and staff will be required to wear a mask and maintain social distancing in the classrooms, common areas, and public spaces on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to Dr. Welsh, plans to return to campus were guided by the efforts of two campus teams: the Academic Continuity Team (ACT), led by Provost, Joanne Z. Bruno, J.D., and the Integration and Communication Task Force, led by ESU\u2019s Director of Environmental Health and Safety, Nathan Black.\u00a0These teams, comprised of students, staff (representing AFSCME, SCUPA and managers), faculty (representing APSCUF, UWCC, University Senate and Chair\u2019s Council) and administrators developed a \u201cGuide to Re-Opening Campus\u201d that is posted on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esu.edu\/open\/index.cfm\">University website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>All plans in the document were recently shared with members of our campus community.\u00a0The document for our campus is intended to keep ESU and our local community as safe as possible in these difficult times while adhering to guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH), the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) and the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe guide is fluid and will be updated as circumstances change,\u201d added Dr. Welsh.\u00a0\u201cAnd while the Guide focuses on our return to campus, the document also includes contingency planning should someone on our campus present with COVID-19 or if the University is forced to return to fully remote instruction and services.\u00a0We want to share our plan with the greater Pocono community so they are aware of our plans and the lengths we\u2019ve gone to in order to educate our students about the importance of each of our health and safety measures.<\/p>\n<p>Some examples of ESU\u2019s plans for Fall 2020 are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>All students, faculty, staff and any visitors to campus will be required to wear a mask and maintain social distancing at all times.<\/li>\n<li>Courses will be delivered in a variety of ways we are calling \u201cFlex Fall,\u201d which will enable faculty to adapt their fall course delivery in both a hybrid or mixed mode delivery as well as preparing for a fully remote delivery in the case of large classes (excess of 60 students) and for contingency purposes.<\/li>\n<li>Cleaning all public spaces and common areas periodically throughout the day to keep everyone safe. Hand sanitizing stations and plastic shielding will be installed in key academic areas and offices around campus, and appropriate signage is in place to remind everyone of traffic flow and other guidelines within all buildings.\u00a0If anyone within our campus community presents with COVID symptoms, they will be tested immediately.\u00a0Plans are in place to quarantine those who test positive and we are also investigating ways to do contact tracing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cIn order for ESU to be successful this fall, we will need the total cooperation and support of everyone, ensuring they follow CDC guidelines, particularly to wear a mask and maintain social distancing,\u201d said Dr. Welsh. \u201cPolicies and procedures for those who do not adhere to University health and safety requirements associated with COVID will be in place to ensure we keep our campus, our community and one another safe.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Other changes at ESU this fall include the retirement of President Welsh on July 31, 2020.\u00a0Ken Long, ESU\u2019s current vice president for administrative and finance will step into the role of Interim President, effective August 1.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI will certainly miss this campus, this great community and especially the fabulous students I\u2019ve been able to serve in these past nine years,\u201d said Dr. Welsh.\u00a0\u201cBut I know I leave ESU in good hands and prepared to face any challenge that comes along.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ESU President Marcia G. Welsh, Ph.D. announced today that students, faculty and staff will return to campus for the Fall 2020 semester, following months of remote instruction and operations due to the activity of the COVID pandemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[143,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-news-release"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20053"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20053"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20064,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20053\/revisions\/20064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}