Harvard University said it will open for fall 2020 but most or all instruction may be remote — that is, through online classes.
“…we will need to prepare for a scenario in which much or all learning will be conducted remotely,” said Harvard provost Alan Garber, in a letter to the campus community posted on the institution’s website. “Our goal is to bring our students, faculty, postdoctoral fellows and staff to campus as quickly as possible, but because most projections suggest that COVID-19 will remain a serious threat during the coming months, we cannot be certain that it will be safe to resume all usual activities on campus by then.”
Garber also said that remote instruction will be “notably different” from that of the spring semester’s, when faculty and staff had less than two weeks to transition to online instruction.
For the fall, “with more time to prepare, we are confident we can create a better, more engaging experience for the fall should many of our activities need to be conducted remotely,” said Garber. “Rather than seeking to approximate the on-campus experience online, we can focus our efforts on developing the best possible remote educational experience.”