University president discusses on-campus classes

JACKSON, Tenn. — Union University announced plans to welcome their students back for on-campus classes for the fall semester.

“We are excited as everybody is ready to get back together,” said Dub Oliver, president of Union University.

Oliver says the university is taking extra safety precautions to ensure the safety of students, faculty and staff from the coronavirus.

“Just spacing the desks out a little more. Fortunately at Union, we don’t have these massive classrooms where there is four or five hundred students in a classroom. Most of our classrooms have 20 students in them. [We are] thinking about protocols in the lab when students are working together in the lab,” Oliver said.

He says the university is still working on logistics, and task teams are in place to develop plans for classroom space, on-campus dining, housekeeping and other matters.

Oliver said Union’s on-campus housing, with a private bedroom for each student and separate entrances into each apartment, provides a safe place for students to live and study.

“As we go about this, we will make some adjustments. We are thinking about that in terms of the dining hall, already rearranged the furniture to make sure that we have some more appropriate distance and just different procedures, and self-service will be served as opposed to the typical thing,” Oliver said.

Oliver says they will be disinfecting classrooms in between each use. He says he is looking forward to seeing all students back on campus this fall semester.

New students will move onto campus August 14, with residence complexes opening for returning students on August 16.

Classes are scheduled to begin August 18.