LSU Announces guidelines for Fall Semester

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Fall 2020 Classroom & Teaching Guidelines

Guiding principles are as follows:
Classes of 100 or more students will be online with a few exceptions.

Classes with between 11-99 students will meet in designated rooms. Departments and colleges already have those preliminary assignments. Some will be in rooms that can accommodate the entire class and can meet regularly (ex. class size of 25 meeting in a classroom that holds 50 or more). Some will be in rooms that only can accommodate half of the class and will require only half the class attend at a time (ex. class size of 50 meeting in a classroom that holds 60, with 25 physically present on a given class session). A hybrid or flex structure to the class would allow all students rotating access to in-person attendance.

Classes with 10 or fewer students may meet as scheduled.

• For all classes held online (fully online or hybrid/flex format), it is recommended that faculty and graduate assistants teaching remotely take advantage of the resources provided by their peers, the LSU Learning & Teaching Collaborative, Faculty Technology Center, and LSU Online to insure best practices in the digital format. To prepare for technology accessibility, course instructors must indicate whether their online instruction will be offered in either synchronous or asynchronous format.

• For all classes held with students attending in person (fully in-person or hybrid/flex format), precautions will be taken to protect your health and that of the students. CDC and state guidelines will be in place and followed. Classrooms will abide by a maximum 50% occupancy rate, face coverings will be required, classroom podiums will be situated more than six feet away from student seating, and there will be enhanced cleaning throughout the buildings. Additional precautions include one-way hallways and planned ingress and egress from classrooms. Faculty and graduate assistants must be prepared to instruct students who are required to quarantine at any point in the semester and therefore unable to attend class. For this reason, live streaming and/or a lecture capture software such as Panopto or other software will be universally implemented.

• Faculty are encouraged to design their courses with a potential disruption in mind that could require fully online instruction.

• Department chairs should work with their deans to identify appropriate accommodations for laboratory and other experiential classes.

• Respecting the responsibility of faculty to make decisions on content and delivery for their courses, faculty members and graduate assistants teaching fewer than 100 students, or those scheduled for in-person instruction, may request to teach remotely. Click here to learn more.