Marquette Plans In-Person Classes in Fall

Marquette University announced Monday that it was planning to return the majority of its classes and operations to in-person for the 2021 Fall semester.

The university has been operating with a mix of in-person and virtual classes since the Fall 2020 Semester. When the students return for 2021-2022 school year, the “vast majority” of classes will be in person, according to a statement from the university announcing their plans.

Currently, the university only has approximately 32% of classes in-person. The rest were online or hybrid — with some students in the classroom and others virtual. The school also implemented restrictions on campus residential buildings, barring students from having guests in their dorms and from visiting other residence halls.

In an attempt to reduce the number of students on campus for the 2020-2021 school year, the university also changed the residency requirements for students. The college lifted the on-campus residency requirement for students who were able to register for all virtual classes.

In August, going into the fall-semester, there were a handful of small protests against the college’s planned reopening. The protesters were students, lecturers and professors advocating for a completely virtual school year.

When Marquette reopened in the fall, it also started conducting mandatory randomized testing for students who were still on campus.

The measures the university put in place, said Chancellor Mike Lovell, allowed the university to “mitigate the spread” of COVID-19 on campus. The new announcement from the university signals that it expects life will be returning to normal in time for the next school year.

“A personalized, on-campus academic and cocurricular experience is foundational to a transformative Catholic, Jesuit education at Marquette,” Lovell said in a statement.

Next semester students could be returning to a campus that looks more like 2019 when 96% of all classes were in person.