MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WTVF) — Middle Tennessee State University president announced he expects students to return to in-person instruction by the fall of 2021.
President Sidney A. McPhee said in a press release that the school is on track to resume primarily in-person instruction campus activities. “We will be back together this fall – even better than we were before,” McPhee said in the release.
One year ago, most universities, including MTSU, closed campuses and switched to virtual instruction due to the COVID-19 pandemic. MTSU officials say the university was among the first in the nation to announce it would resume some on-campus classes and operations for the Fall 2020 semester.
“Our courses offerings will be back to normal — primarily in-person but with selected online options,” he said. “We will use the lessons we learned from teaching during the pandemic, and the technology we installed to help us do so, to make our academic offerings even stronger.
McPhee, however, urged the campus not to ease up on current measures in place to contain COVID-19, including the university’s continued mandates for the wearing of masks, social distancing and observing posted safety capacities in rooms and facilities.
“While there’s light at the end of the tunnel, we must maintain our efforts to contain and control COVID-19 as we wind down the Spring semester,” he said.
On-campus groups were recently given the go-ahead to reserve spaces in campus buildings for activities, including end-of-the-year activities, and will allow off-campus groups to schedule space. Summer camps and conferences will also be allowed in campus facilities, but overnight accommodations will not be permitted except by limited exception and only for academically related groups, such as the Governor’s School for the Arts.
