LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — The University of Kentucky has announced the remainder of the spring semester will be online and 2020 Commencement has been postponed. Officials say the decision was made to abide by guidelines provided by the CDC to do their part to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
The UK campus was empty on Tuesday, as students are on spring break. UK officials originally called for classes to be online for the next two weeks, but now that's how students will finish the semester.
"Some professors have said that they're going to do video conferencing for classes. Some are doing video lectures. But I know they're all freaking out too, trying to transition to an all online class," Kenton Carrier, senior at UK, said.
During a press conference on Tuesday, UK spokesman Jay Blanton says the decision to move the rest of the semester online was for multiple reasons; including the loss of childcare for many UK employees.
All UK employees, with the exception of healthcare providers and people who work in certain labs, will be working remotely as of Wednesday.
Students living on campus need to be moved out of the dorms by March 27th at noon. Blanton said the university will be sending out
information on how the move out will work on Thursday, March 19th.
If a student who lives on campus cannot leave, the university could make an exception on a case by case basis. Officials ask those students fill out a form to be approved to stay on campus.
"There's some obvious examples, like the international population that we have some of those students who can't leave, for a lot of reasons. There might be economic hardship reasons. There could be a whole range of things. We're going to consider those on a case by case basis. We provided a form to our students so they can fill that out and we can get those considerations going quickly," UK spokesman, Jay Blanton said.
Carrier says it's bittersweet to know he won't be on campus with his friends for his last semester as a UK student.
"I was doing senior design, and meetings and there's a lot of things that I was involved with on campus this semester that aren't going to happen now."
UK has postponed the May 2020 Commencement ceremony, but the date is still undetermined. But, Blanton says it's still too early in the coronavirus situation to give a potential reschedule date.
