Marshall officials discuss spring semester during town hall forum

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Marshall University is set to return to campus for the spring semester on January 19.

A town hall forum with numerous university officials taking questions from the public occurred in the past week where plans for housing, safety, grading, and more were discussed.

Sherri Smith, Associate Provost & Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at Marshall said there will be very few changes to the academic calendar and student’s course schedules between the forum and the first day of classes.

Many courses will operate in the same way as the fall semester, with freshmen and graduate students receiving the majority of the in-person courses with upperclassmen having only online courses.

Smith said Marshall will proceed with a normal grading mode in the spring.

“Course that are typically graded with a letter grade will be done so, courses that are typically graded as credit, no credit same thing there,” she said.

VIEW: Marshall Return to Campus Plan for Spring 2021

Students will be required to sign a form saying they will follow on-campus safety requirements in the spring. Tracy Smith, Director of Environmental Health and Safety at Marshall, said upon arrival to campus during the move-in appointments between January 15 to January 18, students will be tested for COVID-19.

Smith said the difference in spring semester testing will be it being done by a PCR based saliva test instead of a nasal swab used in the fall. Random testing will be done to those staying in residence halls but it will not be every student, every week as wished for by Gov. Jim Justice in December.

Smith credited the students’ commitment to safety during the fall semester. Around 25% of students were on campus in the fall, mostly freshmen and graduate students.

Masks were required inside all campus buildings and will continue to be mandated. Marshall’s highest positivity rate for student testing hovered around 3%.

“Last semester we did have over 300 cases, however, most of those cases were isolated. We had zero outbreaks in a residence hall and we did not have a single secondary case that occurred from an in-class exposure,” he said.

“Our cases mainly arose from large gatherings outside of Marshall University.”

For those students in dorms, Mistie Bibbee, Director of Housing and Residence Life said during the town hall that many policies will remain in place from the fall semester including a no outside visitation.

“Should we see throughout the semester as vaccine rolls out, significant decreases, we might reevaluate later in the semester. As of right now, we are going to continue with suspended visitation,” Bibbee said.

Marshall President Jerry Gilbert is planning to host an in-person spring commencement at Joan C. Edwards Stadium on May 1, something that could not be done in December.

The university is welcoming any graduates who missed an opportunity to walk the stage because of the pandemic to do so this spring, should the event remain on as scheduled.





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