The Western Oregon University campus in Monmouth (Courtesy/Diane Stevenson/WOU)
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Western Oregon University is moving nearly all classes online for fall quarter after administrators watched in-person university reopening efforts quickly reversed in other states.
“We’ve seen in the news that universities that have opened with in-person classes have been forced to reverse course as a result of COVID-19 outbreaks,” WOU President Rex Fuller said in a statement Tuesday. “The safety of our students, employees and community is our priority. We’ve done a great deal of work and preparation since spring term, and we are eager to provide students with personalized support while helping them reach their educational goals in our environment as it stands.”
The university, which has about 5,000 students, begins classes Sept. 28 and was planning to offer a mix of all-online, all in-person and hybrid classes, giving faculty the option to choose how they wanted to teach.
Under that plan, about 40% of classes would have been online only, spokeswoman Lisa Catto said. Now, about 95% of classes are headed all-online. A few courses with hands-on activities, like visual arts and science labs, will be hybrid or offered in-person.
WOU isn’t the only public institution rolling back plans to hold in-person classes. University of Oregon President Michael Schill announced Wednesday most classes would move online in the fall after the university initially planned for more in-person classes. Inside HigherEd reported Aug. 12 hundreds of American colleges and universities were walking back early summer plans to hold in-person classes.
WOU had planned to welcome students to a new downtown Salem campus in the fall, offering a master’s degree in organizational leadership as well as several degree-completion options for working adults. Catto said the university had already planned to offer the master’s program courses all online, with some other Salem-based classes meeting in-person once per week.
Now, she said, all Salem-based classes will be entirely online.
On the university’s main campus in Monmouth, dorms will remain open at reduced capacity, with nearly all students living in their own rooms rather than the traditional college roommate arrangement.
Students, normally required to live on campus during their first year, will be allowed to commute within a 60-mile radius of Monmouth, which includes Salem and much of the Portland metro area. About three in four WOU students are Oregonians, and Catto said most of those come from Oregon’s I-5 corridor between Portland and Eugene.
Catto said WOU’s fall enrollment is looking about the same as in recent years despite the pandemic, though it’s difficult to say yet because the university closes applications later than many colleges.
The university will hold a live Q&A Sept. 1 at 2 p.m. about fall plans, and has more information available on its website.
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
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Rachel Alexander is Salem Reporter’s managing editor. She joined Salem Reporter when it was founded in 2018 and covers city news, education, nonprofits and a little bit of everything else. She’s been a journalist in Oregon and Washington for a decade. Outside of work, she’s a skater and board member with Salem’s Cherry City Roller Derby and can often be found with her nose buried in a book.
