One week after starting in-person classes, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced classes will move online.
After reporting 130 COVID-19 positive tests—on 954 total tests, for a positive test rate of 13.6%—between Aug. 10 and Aug. 16, UNC announced Monday that it will switch to entirely remote learning for undergraduates starting Wednesday, Aug. 19. Graduate schools will move forward with their previous plans.
The change takes effect less than two weeks after UNC began classes Aug. 10. In the week since, the school reported four coronavirus clusters—defined as five or more cases in close proximity—kicked multiple students off campus for failing to follow COVID-19 guidelines and was the target of a scathing editorial from The Daily Tar Heel, the school’s student newspaper.
Along with moving classes online, UNC will make changes to reduce its on-campus residential population, according to the announcement from Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz and Robert Blouin, executive vice chancellor and provost.
“Due to this announcement as well as the reduction of campus activities, we expect the majority of our current undergraduate residential students to change their residential plans for the fall,” Guskiewicz and Blouin wrote.
This is a developing story and will be updated if new information becomes available.
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