Oldham: Tech Working Toward August 20 Opening

Tennessee Tech President Phil Oldham said the campus will begin its reopening plan next week in an effort to return students to campus August 20.

“The goal is very clear, the goal is by the end of August to be welcoming 10,000 students back on this campus in as much of a traditional format as possible,” Oldham said.

Oldham said the plan would be to start in-person classes August 24.

University leadership is exploring multiple scenarios for the campus reopening. Oldham said the key to plans right now are keeping them flexible and fluid because things change quickly.

“A lot of details obviously have to go into that, a lot of considerations, running a lot of scenarios because we don’t always know what to expect in the future,” Oldham said.

The phased reopening of campus began this week as facilities crew members returned to campus. Oldham said they have been checking all of the physical infrastructure as well as preparing for any necessary modifications that might be needed due to social distancing.

Beginning Tuesday, non-faculty staff will begin a five-week staged return to campus. Oldham said each campus vice president has determined the best phasing schedule for his/her section. Those leaders have already informed staff members or are in the process of doing so.

“The goal there is to have essentially all the non-faculty staff back on campus by the return after fourth of July,” Oldham said.

Oldham said efforts are being made to help employees in high-risk groups to continue working remotely.

An early July support staff return will allow the university to take the next step of opening the campus to external visitors over the summer. That will begin in earnest with orientation sessions in mid July. Oldham said orientation would be in classes of 300 to 400 at a time spread among multiple small groups around campus.

“It would give us an opportunity to validate some of the campus modifications we’ve put in place through the month of June,” Oldham said.

Oldham said efforts are underway to procure reusable face masks for everyone on campus. In addition, the state is working on securing tests for all state universities. Oldham said his hope would be the campus could first test all students living on campus and then support contact tracing tests for the year.

“Clearly, based on how this virus behaves, a lot of this is going to fall on personal responsibility of everyone involved,” Oldham said. “We will take steps to encourage and ensure that happens.”

Oldham said summer school enrollment has increased about three percent over last year. Oldham said he does not know how to interpret the data as it relates to fall enrollment.

“This is a set of circumstances that none of us have seen before and so the student behaviors are relatively unpredictable,” Oldham said.

Oldham said the university has taken aggressive steps to ensure the fall enrollment numbers meet expectations. Faculty are reaching out to prospective and returning students. Staff is monitoring closely the registration for orientation as well as returning student numbers. New television commercials have been filmed, Oldham said, and new billboards will go up across the state.

Tuition and fees make up about 70 percent of the University’s budget. Oldham said tuition rates could certainly be revisited as the summer begins, as the state explores its financial conditions. He said there’s a “high likelihood” the university budget will be revisited in June after the legislature returns to Nashville.

“I don’t want to get too far ahead of what the legislature might do,” Oldham said.