Officials at the Clarksville-based Austin Peay State University announced they will move all of this year’s face-to-face summer classes online, or to other forms of non-face-to-face instruction.
“We appreciate everyone’s hard work and flexibility as we continue to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic,” APSU President Dr. Alisa White wrote in an email to students, faculty and staff.
“In order to continue to do what we can to mitigate the spread of the virus and ‘flatten the curve,’ we have decided to move all face-to-face Summer 2020 classes to non-face-to-face instruction.”
The move includes Maymester, summer terms I, II and III and the full summer term, the press release said.
On March 16, the university moved all classes at all campuses online for the rest of the spring semester. The university first suspended classes for 10 days on March 13.
In early March, school officials formed a special task force to minimize the spread and impact of the new coronavirus among the university’s students, faculty and staff.
Based on task force recommendations, since March 1, university officials have, among other things, implemented a moratorium on university-related international travel. They have also moved all classes, at all APSU campuses, to a non-face-to-face format of delivery for the remainder of the spring semester. School officials have also encouraged as many employees as possible to work remotely, the press release said.
School officials have also done the following:
• Worked with the university’s Office of Distance Education to host a series of webinars via Zoom to help with the move to online and other non-face-to-face education.
• Delayed this spring’s commencement ceremony because of the Centers for Disease and Prevention’s guidelines to avoid public events.
• Temporarily closed the Foy Fitness and Recreation Center.
• Provided a laptop loan program to students in need of computer access now that the university isn’t offering face-to-face classes.
• Encouraged students to move out of campus housing while keeping housing open for students with nowhere else to go.
• Limited access to all campus buildings.
As The Tennessee Star reported this month, Austin Peay officials also canceled all non-athletic university-sponsored events until further notice.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Austin-Peay University Campus” by Austin-Peay University.
Heck. Sounds like there is no real reason to have a campus at all. Of course, I can think of several liberal universities where the general public would benefit from them shutting down totally. Just think of the money that could be saved.