PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Brown University is delaying a return to in-person instruction until October, citing high coronavirus rates across the nation and concerns about the school’s ability to quarantine large numbers of students.
University President Christina Paxson announced the change Tuesday, saying the public health situation has deteriorated in Rhode Island and across the U.S. in recent weeks. It reverses an earlier plan to begin classes Sept. 9 with many students on campus.
“I want nothing more than to see all of our students back on campus,” Paxson said in a campus letter. “However, we must make decisions that prioritize the health and safety of the Brown community as well as the greater Providence community.”
Under the updated plan, all undergraduate classes will be taught remotely from Sept. 9 until the week of Oct. 5. If coronavirus cases fall from their current levels and if the number of students who test positive is low, Brown will invite sophomores, juniors and seniors to campus beginning Oct. 5. If case rates have not improved by Sept. 11, the entire semester will be taught remotely.
Brown joins a growing number of colleges backing away from in-person instruction as coronavirus cases continue to rise. Princeton University announced last week that all undergraduate classes would be taught online this fall, reversing an earlier plan to bring some students to campus.
For months, Paxson has been a prominent voice calling on colleges to reopen. In a New York Times op-ed in April, she wrote that the “reopening of college and university campuses in the fall should be a national priority.”
In her Tuesday message, Paxson said the university has prepared extensively for a safe reopening. The school has created a campus coronavirus testing site, trained contact tracers and invested in improved air filtration systems, she said. But if large numbers of students tested positive, the university’s capacity to isolate and quarantine students would be stressed, she said.
“While safety, always, is our top priority, let me say how sorry I am to be writing this letter,” Paxson wrote. “I know how eager many of our undergraduates are to return to campus, see their friends and take classes in person, and I understand that a delay of even a few weeks is difficult.”
