Looking forward to Spring Semester

The following message was shared with the OHIO community on Oct. 29, 2021. 

To the Ohio University community,

I write to you today with good news about our plans for Spring Semester classes and campus events.

For Spring Semester 2022, Ohio University plans to return to predominantly normal density in classrooms with most classes offering face-to-face instruction. While we have seen little to no classroom transmission, we will continue to mark classroom spaces to allow faculty to maintain a six-foot distance while teaching. We will also continue to mask indoors, at least at the start of the semester. This will provide protection as we observe what, if any, kind of increase in disease we experience as people return to our campuses after the winter break.

In addition, Ohio University is looking forward to hosting conferences and workshops, planning more special events for our students and the community, and increasing activities on all of our campuses while we continue to follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

We feel confident that we can safely make these changes for the Spring Semester because the public health tools we have put in place have helped us to have a safe and successful Fall Semester. For example:

• We continue to see little to no COVID-19 classroom transmission. 
• Wide net asymptomatic testing is showing few to no positives recently.
• Thanks to your diligence, vaccination rates are increasing.
• We have an effective testing program in place for unvaccinated individuals.
• We have a surveillance testing program of vaccinated individuals to assess incidence of breakthrough infection.

It has been rewarding this Fall Semester to see our University community return to the traditions and events that make our campuses such vibrant places, and I am looking forward to a fantastic Spring Semester.

Sincerely,

Hugh Sherman, Ph.D.
President