Temple University is increasing its in-person course offerings for the 2022 spring semester due to high vaccination rates among students and employees; however, class sizes will not increase and students will still be required to wear masks, said Jodi Levine-Laufgraben, vice provost for academic affairs, assessment and institutional research.
The increase in in-person classes means it will be harder for students to enroll in online-only classes, said Mark Denys, director of student health services.
“Maybe you were in person on Tuesday, remote on a Thursday,” Levine-Laugraben said. “Now those classes could be entirely in-person.”
Students who want to schedule classes exclusively online should discuss their academic plans with their academic advisor, Levine-Laufgraben said.
Temple has decided to maintain current class size capacities for in-person spring classes as each room is prepped with furniture for a smaller number of students, Levine-Laufgraben said.
“When schools, colleges and departments built their spring offerings, they knew the full range of classrooms and capacities available to them,” Levine-Laufgraben said.
The city of Philadelphia lifted its social distancing guidelines in June. Rather than lift distancing requirements for the fall 2021 semester, Temple waited to follow city guidelines until the spring 2022 semester because most students had already registered for fall classes when the city announced its new guidelines, making class changes difficult, Levine-Laufgraben said.
Some students cited high vaccination rates in the university community as a good reason for the university to use its classrooms more.
“I feel like it’s normal and it should be back to normal,” said Nuno Abecasis, a graduate student in philosophy. “If you’re all vaccinated and safe, then that’s a reasonable thing.”
Although Temple had six-foot distancing guidelines for the fall 2021 semester, the university relaxed enforcement of those guidelines after the city lifted its own distancing requirements.
With the increase in in-person classes, the risk of disease transmission is higher, said Graciela Jaschek, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics.
“As an institution, you put people at risk by removing them in person,” Jaschek said. “But by making vaccines necessary, you can at least help control the safety of a classroom.”
Temple announced its COVID-19 vaccination mandate in August and gave students and employees until Nov. 15 to be fully vaccinated, The Temple News reported.
As of December 10, more than 97 percent of all Temple students and employees have been vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the university’s vaccine. dashboard.
Temple has maintained a fairly low and consistent rate of COVID-19 cases since the start of the fall 2021 semester, which makes the increase in in-person classes less of a concern, Jaschek said.
This week, Temple reported a positivity rate of 2.40% compared to Philadelphia’s positivity rate of 4.4%, according to the university’s vaccine and case. dashboard.
“No matter where the class is, we should continue to mask up,” Jaschek said. “It’s hard to predict what will happen because we don’t know if there will be a new variant that will appear.”
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