Creating a Safe Environment for Teaching and Learning

Teaching and learning at the University of Rochester look a little different this fall. As Rochester has slowly opened campus in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, students and professors are engaging in the work of scholarship and research, but they are interacting in innovative and coronavirus-adapted ways.

Some classes in the College and at the Eastman School of Music have been reduced in size, some are being taught virtually. Masks are the norm for in-person instruction.

And faculty members have put into practice teaching methods that model the University’s safety protocols: building online options into courses, using clear boards to separate teachers from students, holding classes outdoors, employing the Oxford-Cambridge tutorial system (which combines group classes with individual meetings), and working in labs set up at half capacity.

“It’s been an unprecedented experience for everybody,” says Rudi Fasan, the Andrew S. Kende Professor in Synthetic Organic Chemistry. “I think the University and faculty have done a great job of adapting to this new reality. It’s had a major impact in the way we teach and conduct research. We shut our research lab down for a few months, but were able to resume this summer and ramp up to a point where we can be productive.”

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