The Article below was published in Vol. 136, Issue 4 of the Lake Forest College Stentor on December 4, 2020.
Emma G. Overton ’21
Editor-in-Chief and News Editor
After a fully remote fall 2020 semester due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Lake Forest College is planning for a return to campus for most students, faculty, and staff in the spring 2021 semester. The details of the College’s plan were released on November 24 to the campus community via email. In the email accompanying the plan, President Schutt noted that “the College will continue our planning process in the weeks ahead, as virus developments may require, and will regularly communicate with students and their families, faculty, and staff.”
The Lake Forest College Plan for Spring Semester 2021 in Response to Coronavirus, or the “Plan,” is a 20-page document that details the various campus responses to the coronavirus. Notably, the Plan explained that while the College is planning for a return to campus for the spring 2021 semester, which begins on February 1, it noted that “today, the virus is surging again, and the daily infection rate is higher than ever across the nation. As a result, the College must continue to carefully monitor conditions in and beyond our region, and the future course of the coronavirus will unavoidably impact our plans to return to campus.”
Additionally, the Plan explained that the College has “gained ample access to COVID-19 tests, reserved 100 residential rooms for potential quarantine and isolation, enhanced building ventilation, and learned valuable lessons from the scientific community.”
The main sections of the Plan include “Mutual support and individual accountability, Health and safety, Teaching and learning, Campus life, Athletics, Facilities and spaces, and Transitioning to campus.”
The provisions of the Forester Commitment are outlined under the Mutual support and individual accountability portion of the Plan, and the Plan explains that all students, faculty, and staff who are planning on returning to campus must sign the commitment, while those learning or working remotely do not need to sign.
Allie Caskey ’21 shared with Stentor staff that she is “not planning on returning back to campus” in the spring. She noted that “my decision is largely financial because I’m going directly into a graduate program so the opportunity to save on room and board matters more to me.” Additionally, Caskey noted that while she is “sure the school is working in students’ best interest,…I know there is a financial incentive as well. It’s naive to think people aren’t going to get sick and the school will have to decide if that [is]worth it.”
In a December 2 Zoom forum, President Schutt, along with Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students Andrea Conner and Krebs Provost and Dean of the Faculty Davis Schneiderman answered questions from the campus community about the return to campus. During the forum, in response to a question about a situation where students have many, most, or all of their courses designated as “remote” but have a need to come to campus, Dean Conner stated that “coming to campus for anything, whether it’s a lab, voice lesson, or to use the art studio, it means that you will be required to uphold the items in Forester Commitment such as regular testing, and a daily medical screening.” She further noted that students in this situation will be classified as commuters.
In answering a question about the ability of residential students to leave campus to work or see family, Conner noted that “we are asking students to limit their trips off-campus to things that are essential to you.” She further noted that “Spring Break was eliminated with the intention of minimizing travel off-campus.”
Conner then addressed a question about how students who have already had the COVID-19 virus will be handled. She noted, “we will follow the scientific guidance for people in that situation. If someone who has tested positive and is within the first 90 days of their test and has remained asymptomatic, they will not need to be tested and not required to be quarantined if they come in contact with someone else who tests positive.”
When answering a question about the College’s decision not to contract with local hotels to provide additional housing for students, as was the plan for the fall 2020 semester, Conner stated that “we can accommodate most or all of the students that prefer to live on campus due to an increased number of students who prefer to commute from home, or rent off-campus or learn remotely. There is just not a need to supplement as there was in the fall.”
Questions concerning academics were addressed by Schneiderman, who noted that course modalities, either in-person/hybrid or remote, “are informed by the health considerations of the faculty and the pedagogical needs of the course.” He further stated that “we do expect that a majority of the courses will be taught remotely.” He explained that courses marked in-person/hybrid are courses that will be offered on campus but can have remote components, and that in-person/hybrid courses “can be open to remote learners who are not on campus.” He later explained that many in-person/hybrid courses will have a “classroom navigator,” who he defined as a “student cinematographer who will say to the professor, ‘there’s a question’” from someone who is on a Zoom call for an in-person class. This classroom navigator, according to Schneiderman, “will be a facilitator of that exchange.”
He further noted that there are currently around 160 students, a figure that was later confirmed by Conner as “just over 10 percent” of the student body who have chosen to learn remotely for the upcoming semester.
For remote learners, Schneiderman noted that they are able to take all courses, regardless of designation, “but because they may have a more optimized experience in a fully remote course, we have asked those 160 students to think about, when it makes sense for their academic program, to in fact take remote courses.” He stressed that “we are not putting up any obstacles for students getting the courses they need to progress toward their degree.”
Regarding graduation, Schneiderman stated that the College is planning to hold Commencement for the classes of 2020 and 2021 at Ravinia and that they are currently confirming details with the venue. According to the College’s website, the dates of commencement are “TBD-No later than May 22-23.”
Near the end of the forum, Schutt addressed questions about athletics, noting the release of a decision by the Midwest Conference about athletics would be available the next day. According to a press release on the Midwest Conference website on December 3, the Midwest Conference will “not sponsor league competition, including championships, for fall and winter sports during the 2020-2021 academic year,” and later explained that “[t]he Midwest Conference continues to work diligently toward a spring season for baseball, softball, men’s and women’s tennis, and men’s and women’s outdoor track & field . . . [t]raining, skill development and/or strength & conditioning sessions may continue for fall and winter sport athletes at the discretion of each institution.”
Closing out the forum, Schutt stated that further questions can be directed to the coronavirus@lakeforest.edu email.
