October 16, 2020
I am grateful for all of your hard work supporting our students during this challenging semester.
As we plan for the spring semester, we are working to offer substantially more face-to-face classes than we have this fall. We know the on-campus experience is important for our students’ success.
We also know much more than we did last summer about how our policies, testing and tracing efforts, and other measures protect the health of our campus community. For most of the fall semester, COVID cases at UCF have remained relatively flat. Last week showed a jump that has been traced to a spread from social gatherings.
We will continue to emphasize to our entire community the importance of abiding by our COVID-19 protocols. But it is significant that to date we have seen no spread of the virus resulting from our classrooms.
Our spring approach will again follow our COVID-19 policies, including requiring face coverings, conducting daily cleaning and nightly sanitizing of classrooms, and enforcing physical distancing. We will not be increasing the density of seating within our classrooms.
We also recognize that some of our faculty members or someone in their household may be in a high-risk category for COVID-19, and we want to ensure that these faculty are not teaching face-to-face. A new process launched today will enable these faculty to be considered for exemption by completing a form and submitting documentation from their physician for approval. To support spring planning efforts, forms should be submitted by November 6.
Students will begin registering for classes in early November. We recognize that the formats of some class sections may need to change after registration opens.
To help limit the spread of COVID-19, spring break will be rescheduled to a week (to be determined soon) later in the semester. We will move to entirely remote instruction following that week, although residence halls and campus offices will remain open.
And let me emphasize this point as always: Should public health conditions require a change, we are ready to pivot to more remote teaching at any time if necessary.
Thank you again for your persistence, flexibility, and dedication to our students.
Dr. Michael D. Johnson
Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs