Illinois Universities Call Off Spring Break Due to COVID-19

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has decided to cancel spring break and postpone the start of the spring semester by a week in order to curb the spread of COVID-19 virus.  

The start of the spring semester will be postponed from January 19 to January 25, the university’s website has highlighted, Erudera reports.

Following this decision, the Chancellor of UIUC, Robert J. Jones, said in a release that students’ health and safety remain the university’s main priority.

“We believe these precautions are necessary to maximize the safety of our entire community,” he added.

According to a press release, classes will start one week later; therefore, students who will attend classes physically must return early for on-campus COVID-19 testing. The latter are not allowed to use campus’ facilities unless they demonstrate two negative COVID-19 tests at least three days apart from one another.

Moreover, the university changes foresee adding three break days in three months; one in February, in March, and one in April.

UIUC follows the other state schools which have decided to amend the schedules, including:

• Northern Illinois University which has decided to end the spring semester one week earlier, without the spring break.
• Southern Illinois University Carbondale which has postponed the spring semester one week, also cancelling the spring break.
• Western Illinois University has decided to end the spring semester one week earlier, also with no spring break.

In the meantime, it has been reported that Southern Illinois University Carbondale is considering giving students extra days off.

Apart from UIUC, other public universities across the country have claimed they have designated the spring terms.

Earlier this month, Texas A&M University representatives stated that the university is considering cutting short spring break from a week to one day. Whereas, last month, Ohio State University cancelled the spring break and added two break days.

Meanwhile, the UIC Senior Director of Public Affairs Sherri McGinnis Gonzalez said that the University of Illinois in Chicago had not changed the spring schedule yet.

Due to travel restrictions imposed across the world as a result of the Corona pandemic as well as to ensure the health and safety of students, Harvard College has decided to cancel the Spring Programming 2021, Harvard’s Office of International Education (OIE) has announced lately.

To prevent the further spread of the virus, several universities in Saxony, Germany have also announced recently that students there will follow 85 per cent of classes online even during the winter semester.