Princeton University announced that all courses for undergraduate students will be offered online for the fall semester. The Ivy League institution joins Harvard University and the California State University system in their decisions to restrict access to campus this fall.
According to a local news report, Princeton University has announced that its courses will be offered online for the fall semester. Several other institutions including Rutgers University, The College of New Jersey, and Rowan University have also announced that they will offer their courses online in the fall.
In a letter to the community, Princeton president Christopher L. Eisgruber said that the ongoing pandemic would make it difficult to provide a “meaningful” campus experience.
“In brief, the pandemic’s impact in New Jersey has led us to conclude that we cannot provide a genuinely meaningful on-campus experience for our undergraduate students this fall in a manner that is respectful of public health concerns and consistent with state regulations,” Eisgruber wrote.
Princeton had previously intended to open its campus to the freshman and junior classes this fall. Sophomores and seniors would have been invited to live on campus for the spring semester. Now, that plan has been discarded. Eisgruber cited rising infection rates in certain parts of the United States as the reason for the policy change.
“When I last communicated with you, just over a month ago, we anticipated welcoming undergraduates from the Classes of 2022 and 2024 to campus in late August. We noted at the time, however, that we would continue to monitor the course of the pandemic, and that we might have to change our plans if it worsened,” Eisgruber added. “In the weeks that followed, infection rates soared around much of the country, with nearly 2 million new cases reported over the last month.”
Breitbart News previously reported that Harvard University will offer all of its courses online for the fall semester. However, 40 percent of their undergraduate student population has been invited to live on campus for the fall semester.
Source: breitbart
