IUP plans for full campus reopening in August

Indiana University of Pennsylvania is joining California, Clarion and Edinboro in posting plans for a full return to campus.

Fall semester at Indiana school is slated to begin Aug. 27, officials said.

Declining covid-19 numbers apparently are playing into calculations as university leaders across the region plot their plans for the fall 2021. Their announcements followed recent reports showing covid-19 cases have declined by 50% as the state began to ramp up its vaccine program.

Like their counterparts at universities elsewhere, IUP officials couched their announcement, noting that plans could change should covid cases increase.

“We will continue to follow the guidelines from the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control as we move forward, but we wanted to share our current thinking to help our students and their families to make their plans,” IUP President Michael Driscoll said.

Colleges across the country, which were forced to shutter campuses and move to online instruction last spring, adopted a variety of approaches to classes.

Some, like IUP and the University of Pittsburgh, invited a limited number of students back to campus and offered a combination of online and in-person classes. Others, like Cal U and Edinboro, remained largely shuttered, providing online options during the fall semester.

Officials at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg set the stage for more in-person classes beginning this week by lowering the official risk status at the Hempfield campus from elevated to guarded. The change means professors will have the option of returning to campus to teach classes that are now being offered online. Students will still have the option of taking all classes online or returning to the classroom, if that is available.

IUP officials said they have yet to decide how May commencement will be handled.