By Tim Mastro

NEWARK — The University of Delaware is planning for in-person classes in the upcoming semester with a near-full return to campus, President Dr. Dennis Assanis said during a virtual town hall on Thursday.

Dr. Assanis said about 95% of classes will operate face-to-face, pending any future changes to COVID-19 case rates, both at UD’s main campus and its Associate in Arts Program. There will be exceptions for large lecture hall classes to ensure social distancing regulations are met.

“This is big news,” Dr. Assanis said. “As we look at the rollout of vaccines and the decline in public cases, we anticipate a robust, safe fall semester with an easing of some of the restrictions.”

“I can assure the academic year 2021-2022 will look a lot more normal,” he added “Next fall will be a normal campus experience. It won’t be anything like what we experienced this year.”

The university also intends to use its residence halls at their designed capacity and play a full fall sports team. Fall sports are currently playing a shortened season this spring after the 2020 season was postponed due to the pandemic.

Some fall classes would continue to be taught online and asynchronously to give students flexibility to fit courses into their schedules, according to UD. With the expectation that some new international students may not be able to travel to Delaware, UD will also offer a robust set of online courses for those students.

There was a COVID-19 outbreak at the school several weeks ago, but it has since been controlled, Dr. Assanis said as the university’s positivity rate is now down to 1.2%. As of Wednesday, more than 50,000 COVID-19 tests have been processed at the university since September.

Dr. Assanis added all university employees are now eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine, including employees who live out of state. He said he eventually hopes to partner with the state for mass vaccination events on campus before the end of the semester for both employees and students once students are eligible to receive the vaccine.

The vaccine won’t be required for students to return to campus, Dr. Assanis said, but it is encouraged.

Dr. Assanis also announced the university is optimistic it can hold an in-person commencement for both the class of 2021 and the class of 2020 in late May. These will be broken up into separate smaller ceremonies with some ceremonies for the class of 2021 on Friday, May 28 and Saturday, May 29 while the class of 2020 will have some ceremonies Sunday, May 30.

Dr. Assanis said it is important to him to honor the class of 2020, not only because of what it went through last year, but also because when that class’ freshman year was Dr. Assanis’ first year as UD president.

“I want to celebrate with them,” he said. “They hold a special place in my heart because we started the same year.”

While Dr. Assanis is expecting a nearly full campus in the fall, he said he is hopeful faculty and others will be able to return to campus later this spring.

“We should be able to ease a lot of restrictions over the spring and summer,” Dr. Assanis said. “That means that more people will return to work in the spring to teach and conduct research. Some measures, of course, like face coverings, physical distancing and periodic testing will still be needed for a while to make sure we don’t see a resurgence of the virus.”