A spring semester marked by unexpected school closures and an abrupt transition to remote learning has come to a close, and now New Hampshire colleges and universities are trying to decide what’s next.
There is no single mode of operation. In late April, Southern New Hampshire University announced its Manchester campus would remain closed in the fall and all classes would be held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Just 18 miles down the Everett Turnpike in Merrimack, Thomas More College of Liberal Arts plans to reopen with face-to-face classes as usual.
Here’s where each of New Hampshire’s colleges stand on plans for the fall. This list will be updated.
While most of Antioch University’s courses will remain online in the fall semester, its Keene campus will be partially open to offer face-to-face classes for some of the more hands-on programs, including dance movement therapy, environmental studies and clinical mental health counseling. Students and faculty must wear masks on campus at all times.
Campus services like the library will be open, but will have capacity restrictions.
Colby-Sawyer will open its New London campus for face-to-face classes in the fall. The school will implement social distancing rules, like putting a capacity on the number of people who can be in a classroom and requiring students to use the dining hall in shifts to reduce crowding.
More details on fall operations at Colby-Sawyer will be released by July.
New Hampshire’s community colleges, which include NHTI, Manchester, Nashua, Great Bay, Lakes Region, River Valley and White Mountains community colleges, will be bringing students back to their campuses in the fall. In fact, they are bringing students back as early as this summer, to do the hands-on coursework required for their technical programs like dentistry, auto tech or nursing.
More details will emerge in the next few weeks about fall operations for the community colleges, as administrators meet with New Hampshire’s Division of Public Health Services to determine best practices. It is likely that operations plans will differ at each college based on size of the student body and the types of programs that are offered.
Dartmouth is still considering different options for fall, including a mixture of in-person and online courses. In the event that students may be allowed back to campus to live and study, the college’s goal will be to decrease the density of students in residence halls and dining halls. Special quarantine living spaces will be set aside to house students who become sick with COVID-19 or have been exposed.
Dartmouth’s lab research facilities are reopening slowly this summer, with one person per research group permitted on campus at a time, under strict guidelines about wearing masks, distancing and being hygienic in shared spaces.
International study abroad programs are canceled for the fall semester. Dartmouth will share a finalized fall plan with more details by June 29.
Franklin Pierce will be opening its campuses in Rindge, Manchester, Lebanon and Portsmouth for in-person classes in the fall.
Rules will be put in place about cleaning, mask-wearing and distancing to meet federal and state health guidelines, according to a May 20 letter from president Kim Mooney. More details will be released at a later date.
Granite State College will be holding its fall term online. Its campuses in Concord, Conway and Manchester will be closed through Dec. 15. While many of its course offerings for adult-aged college students are online to begin with, the face-to-face evening courses and weekend intensives won’t be offered for fall term.
The college is still working to determine how it will operate for winter term, which begins Jan. 4, 2021.
Keene State College plans to open its Keene campus for in-person classes and residential living in the fall. More updates will come by the end of July. If re-opening ends up being delayed because of the pandemic, Keene plans to offer remote learning, or a blend of on-campus and remote learning until campus does re-open.
If the school ends up having to go completely remote due to the pandemic, the college says it will offer more financial aid, and a reduction in attendance cost for students.
New England College’s campus in Henniker will be open in the fall. Students can choose whether they want to return to campus to live and attend face-to-face classes, or stay at home and take classes online – both options will be available. On-campus classes will meet just once a week and will be limited to 10 students.
First-year orientation and dorm move-in days will be staggered, to minimize crowds. Dining halls will offer take-out and socially distant eating locations.
Students will be given masks with the school’s logo that they will be required to wear at all times outside their dorm rooms, and they must monitor their temperatures twice a day using school-provided thermometers. No social gatherings larger than 10 people are permitted on campus.
Plymouth State has created a task force to figure out when students might be able to return to campus. The school hopes to return to on-campus learning this fall, but is also working on a hybrid delivery method (both on campus and remote). More updates will come over the summer about when and how classes will be conducted.
Rivier will be opening its campus in Nashua for in-person classes and dorm living in the fall. The school plans to follow federal, state and local public health guidelines when implementing practices like wearing masks, social distancing, washing hands and keeping surfaces clean, according to a letter sent to students by Sr. Paula Buley, the university’s president.
Saint Anselm will be offering in-person classes on its campus in Manchester in the fall. The college will be requiring mask use, putting a capacity on the number of people in classrooms and encouraging extra cleaning and social distancing as much as possible to make the experience safer. There will also be health checks for people entering and exiting campus.
Southern New Hampshire University plans to keep its Manchester campus closed in the fall, and the university will continue to hold classes online for students in every program.
The school will charge students $960 per course, which would reduce tuition from the usual $31,000 to just under $10,000 for a 5-course semester. Tu ition for incoming first-year students will be waived for the first year, to encourage them to “take a bet on us,” according to a statement posted to the SNHU website.
A statement on the university website says the campus will consider reopening for the spring semester in January and will almost certainly be open for the fall semester of 2021.
Thomas More’s campus in Merrimack will be open in the fall and will operate as usual. A ccording to Dominic Cass ella, Thomas More’s assistant director of communications, the college’s small class sizes make it easier for the school to operate. Thomas More has a student body of 88 people, according to its website.
UNH will be bringing students back onto its campuses in Durham and Concord for in-person classes in the fall semester. Classes will be offered in a blended remote and in-person format so students can choose to take classes from home or on campus.
The university will be implementing a system for testing and contact-tracing for COVID-19, will boost cleaning in common spaces, and provide hand sanitizer and masks.