On Thursday, March 12, at 5:48 p.m., emails were sent to the Union community from Bryan Carrier, vice president for student life and dean of students, and Dub Oliver, president of Union University, on how the campus plans to respond to what the World Health Organization has now claimed as a global pandemic, the COVID-19, or the Coronavirus.
The Executive Council of Union University, in hopes to mitigate the spread of the virus, has decided to move all full semester classes to an online or alternate delivery format starting Monday, March 16. This form of communication will resume March 30 after the university Spring Break during March 23 to March 27 and plans to end April 10 in hopes of resuming face-to-face instruction on Monday, April 13. Faculty will remain available to all students for office hours and advising through online or other forms of communication.
For accelerated classes that end March 19, students will meet as scheduled for their final exams, and courses with active learning components such as nursing clinicals or student teaching will be communicated to students by their professors.
Union’s housekeeping services have increased sanitization and cleaning protocols for all public spaces, so in spite of classes continuing on an online platform, the Logos Library will remain open, offering electronic resources as well as safe and secluded spaces for studying.
Residence halls will remain open for students who wish to remain on campus, and students will not be required to move out of their apartments during the span of this social distancing protocol. Brewer Dining Hall will remain open, but there will only be carry-out and pick-up orders allowed during scheduled hours. The Lexington Inn will close until further notice beginning at 9 p.m. on Thursday, March 12. For hours and information on dining services, visit http://www.uu.edu/studentlife/dining/.
All on-campus events with more than 100 people in attendance are suspended from March 13 to April 12 per recommendation of the CDC to control the spread of COVID-19. All home athletic competitions are canceled from March 13 to March 15, leaving information of games after these dates left pending from the NCAA and Gulf South Athletic Conference.
All Union University offices and operations will continue as normal, but Union has suspended all international and domestic university-sponsored travel for students and employees until the CDC’s travel restrictions has been lifted.
As a final word, Dub Oliver encouraged the community by stating the sovereignty of the God we serve.
“Because of who Christ is, and who we are in relationship with Him, we should have faith over fear, peace over panic and ultimately, love overall,” Oliver concludes.
