At some point, classes will restart at the University of Tennessee, with plans for in-person lectures, and a return to normal campus life. Leaders of UT's Herbert College of Agriculture are making plans to keep students and faculty safe from the spread of COVID while school goes on. Here's more on what this new version of college will look like. Hello, I'm Charles Denny.
This is AgCast, brought to you by the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture. Whether it's August, later in fall, January, or some unknown date in the future, in-person classes will resume at UT. Campus administrators, including the Herbert College of Agriculture, are making plans to improve university life for students in these tough times. Here's Rebecca Wright, who works with students at Herbert.
A lot of times with COVID, we've talked about how it can be perceived as negative, and students feel like they're not getting the experiences that they potentially could have had, and then they feel robbed of that. But instead of making it an experience where they feel like they've not gotten or changing that outlook, we're trying to change the communication where it's more positive, and trying to make that experience seamless, but ultimately make them feel like they are here at Herbert and they matter and they belong. Call a Beal, Dean of the Herbert College, misses her kids. She echoes the call to give students the education they deserve right now.
I would love for students to be able to come back on campus and experience the full richness of the college environment and experience, and be able to go to football games, and be able to be in crowds and get excited, but you know, we're going to have to take some precautions. It's not only to keep our students safe, but also to keep our faculty and our staff safe. So we are doing everything we can to make the environment a good one for the students and still have a wonderful learning environment. Beal says UTIA will follow university guidelines to keep COVID from spreading on campus, hand sanitizing of course.
Also, there will be more time between classes so students aren't bunched together. Social distancing will be further emphasized in classrooms. UT will also require students and staff to get flu vaccinations, and possibly COVID vaccinations if one becomes available soon. And another major safety measure, Beal says, what professors will see when they look out over their classes.
And if you walk into a classroom last year, you would see a sea of seats, okay? If you walk into a classroom now, some of the seats are taped off, some of the seats are even missing. And what we're doing is we're mandating a six foot distance, minimum distance between students. And then professors, when they face their students, they're going to be facing a little bit different type of a crowd.
As they look across the students, they're probably going to see a sea of orange, but not orange shirts, not orange hats, a sea of orange masks, because all of the students will be wearing masks in class. And that's to keep each other safe, because balls care about each other. If you're like me, well past the age of 50, here's the main difference between college and our day and what it's like now. Students do a lot of their work online, listening to lectures, projects, and tests.
The internet is what a trip to the library used to be. When COVID hit, UT went exclusively to online instruction, and there will be a blend of computer and in-person classes in the new semester. And I was joking with somebody, I thought first and foremost it would be very cool because he doesn't like getting a package in the mail, so I thought there was some level of excitement there. Andrew Shurfi teaches an Intro to Soil Science class at the Herbert College.
He's done innovative things with instruction, including online how-to videos with his student assistant. And Shurfi even sent homework to the student's homes. And so I'm never opposed to trying something new, and that's what I went for. And the hardest part about this particular class, ESS 210, Introduction to Soul Science, is the lab component.
How do you have a lab field but at home? And so what I devised was basically a system to send all the students a box of materials containing stuff that we would normally use in lab, and materials that we would normally use as soil scientists, so that they could have that actually hands-on experience learning what types of materials we use in our field, and how to apply them to the content. But being totally online doesn't replace a full college experience. It's hoped that will be possible soon.
Meantime, the plan is to take every step to stay safe while teaching and learning. Thanks for listening, I'm Charles Denny. For more real-life solutions provided by the UT Institute of Agriculture, go to our website at ag.fennacy.edu.