Dear students,
Thanks to your continued vigilance and healthy habits, many TU classes and labs were able to return to in-person instruction this week. Our COVID-19 positivity rate was an astoundingly low 0.5%, and we look forward to planning in-person events throughout the spring. We hope you enjoyed the virtual activities that took place during our two-week Winter Wellness period and are looking forward to many events scheduled for Black History Month and for TU Outdoors.
With a solid foundation of safety protocols and a clear mission of putting the health of students first, TU has kept its campus open. Now, vaccines are rolling out and we have begun planning for the 2021-22 academic year. While we are closely monitoring the latest developments in the pandemic, we are optimistic about our chances for returning to an improved version of business as usual. We hope to reintroduce all of the opportunities that were removed this year due to COVID-19 but keep the flexibility, creativity and technological improvements that the pandemic inspired. We remain committed to keeping our community safe and adhering to local and federal guidelines. We also want to balance that concern with providing all of the personalized academic opportunities and rich campus life you expect from TU.
Our plan is for fall 2021 to be an evolution of what you’ve experienced this year. With rising immunity and declining COVID-19 cases, TU can restore most classes and activities that had to be moved online, postponed or canceled. We want you back on campus, with friends and faculty, at athletic events and music performances, in student organization and club meetings and hanging out in the Student Union. We want you to be able to find a new roommate, dance at the homecoming bonfire and hug each other after commencement!
We also want to embrace those pieces of flexible, virtual learning that many of you enjoyed and appreciated. There are circumstances beyond a pandemic that might make it difficult for students to be on campus or in class, so we anticipate offering several remote courses next year to accommodate those needs. Please email us at covid19@utulsa.eduand share your feedback on what worked best for you this year or what options you’d like to see in the fall.
More information will be shared in the coming weeks and months, but I am excited to think about what a resilient, vibrant and adaptable University of Tulsa will look like in the future! We appreciate all you have done to care for yourselves and each other to this point and look forward to a healthy, happy spring semester.
Sincerely,
Casey Reed
Dean of Students and Senior Vice Provost of Enrollment Management