FAQs

As we approach our academic mission during this time, students and faculty will see a number of changes this fall that emphasize the health and safety of everyone on our campus. These modifications are aimed at maintaining a robust instruction and learning environment, while keeping all of our community members safe.

The main accreditation criteria for our courses remain the same whether they are taught in person, online or remotely: Our courses must involve regular and substantive instructor interaction with students. With remote and online teaching, instructors are able to:

• Provide regular instruction and interact regularly with their students. 

• Provide full and substantive assessment and regular responses to students’ coursework.

• Be proactive and available in providing information or responding to students’ questions about the content of the course. (Instructors typically begin the semester with a class discussion about the content of the course to make sure that all students understand expectations.)

We are implementing a first-of-its-kind “First-Year Academic Experience” for all first-year students. Those students will be housed and enrolled in classes with small cohort groups. Courses will be offered in a variety of in-person, distance and hybrid formats.

Instructors across campus are thinking carefully about how to interact with students and design teaching practices that promote learning in face-to-face, remote and online modes. The Center for Teaching & Learning has partnered with Continuing Education, the Office of Information Technology and the Provost’s Office of Academic Innovation to offer workshops and provide resources and individual consultations for faculty on effective, evidence-based practices for remote and online teaching.

• The Academic Instruction Implementation Team is working with Housing and Dining Services on the best approach to first-year cohorts. Cohort design will be variable depending on the academic experience and living environment. Our goal is to have students with common academic interests and common courses share living spaces, such as the floor of a residence hall.
• We anticipate that smaller academic cohorts may vary from 25 to 150 students dependent on academic interests and the courses in which students are enrolled. Smaller cohorts will exist within a larger cohort that, in most cases, will represent the residence hall. 
• Breaking large student networks, in which students take classes across multiple student groups, into smaller student networks taking the same group of courses can reduce the risk of transmitting COVID-19. Academic cohorting will also help create for our first-year students the natural cohorts that tend to emerge for upperclassmen as they move into upper-division courses specific to their majors.

• The courses first-year students will take will focus on courses that promote their academic progress, including general education requirements and major requirements. They will also have an opportunity to schedule elective courses, primarily as online options, outside of their cohort. 
• The cohort model provides a smaller, residential college experience within a larger university setting and will allow first-year students to start off strong, complete required courses and work toward earning their degrees while staying safe on campus.

Degree-seeking students have the opportunity to add, drop or swap classes during the schedule adjustment period (Aug. 3–9), with access available for all students during open enrollment (starts Aug. 10). 

• For more information on changing your class schedule, view the full announcement
• Learn more about online, remote and hybrid instruction

• When determining which courses will be offered in-person, we will emphasize in-person delivery of labs and studio courses.

• We will also prioritize other classes for in-person delivery whose academic outcomes are difficult to achieve virtually.

Yes. The campus is committed to equitable remote options for vulnerable/at-risk populations and meeting the needs of students whose health or personal circumstances require them to learn remotely. A foundational principle of our Academic Implementation Team is ensuring the campus will offer enough fully remote and/or online options that students who cannot attend courses in person can make progress toward their degrees. However, not every course will be offering remote instruction, and this may require a fully remote student to choose different classes.

• The plan was developed in consultation with CU Boulder faculty and community epidemiology and public health experts, and it was informed by more than 1,500 points of input gathered through engagement with students, faculty, staff, parents, community members and others.

• This included campuswide town halls, faculty forums and input via webforms and other interactions.

As we approach our academic mission during this time, students and faculty will see a number of changes this fall to prioritize the health and safety of our campus. These modifications are aimed at maintaining a robust instruction and learning environment, while keeping all of our community-members safe.

The main accreditation criteria for our courses remain the same whether they are taught in person, online or remotely: Our courses must involve regular and substantive instructor interaction with students. With remote and online modalities, instructors are able to:

• Provide regular instruction and interact regularly with their students. 

• Provide full and substantive assessment and regular feedback on students’ coursework.

• Be proactive and available in providing information or responding to students’ questions about the content of the course. (Instructors typically begin the semester by facilitating a class discussion about the content of the course to make sure that all students understand expectations.)

We are implementing a first-of-its-kind “First-Year Academic Experience” for all first-year students. Those students will be housed and enrolled in classes with small cohort groups. Courses will be offered in a variety of in-person, distance and hybrid formats.

Instructors across campus are thinking carefully about how to interact with students and design teaching practices that promote learning in face-to-face, remote and online modes. The Center for Teaching & Learning has partnered with Continuing Education, the Office of Information Technology, and the Provost’s Office of Academic Innovation to offer workshops, as well as provide resources and individual consultations for faculty on effective, evidence-based practices for remote and online teaching.

• If students are enrolled in fewer courses at one time, they have fewer contacts with other students within the classroom. 

• This diminishes the opportunities for virus spread. In addition, shorter sessions create natural “breakoff points” within a semester if it becomes necessary to end in-person instruction.

• Most students will be taking 16-week long courses.

• We are committed to delivering on our mission of educating the next generation and that is best done in person.  We especially considered students who would be most disproportionately affected if we were to be fully remote -- first-generation, underrepresented, low-income and rural students.

• We are planning a flexible operational model that can pivot to fully online/remote if necessary and can also enable increasing hybrid/in-person modes of operation, based on a strong mitigation model in place to isolate and contain COVID-19 spread, in line with recommendations with multiple public health entities.

The CU Board of Regents sets tuition and fees for all CU campuses each spring as part of the regular budget cycle. This year, the board approved a zero percent tuition increase for incoming and returning students. CU Boulder’s four-year undergraduate tuition guarantee provides additional certainty for incoming and continuing students by ensuring tuition doesn’t increase over a student’s first four years.

The blend of in-person, hybrid, remote and online courses that will be offered in fall 2020 will not diminish the quality and value of a degree from CU Boulder.

The main criteria for our courses remain the same whether they are taught in person, online or remotely: our courses must involve regular and substantive instructor interaction with students. With remote and online teaching, faculty and instructors are still able to:

• Provide regular instruction and interact regularly with their students. 
• Provide full and substantive assessments and regular feedback on students’ coursework.
• Be proactive and available in providing information or responding to students’ questions about the content of the course.

Faculty across campus continue to incorporate best practices for teaching and learning in various teaching modalities into the design of their courses.

In addition, the Center for Teaching & Learning has partnered with Continuing Education, the Office of Information Technology and the Office of Academic Innovation to offer workshops and provide resources and individual consultations for faculty on effective, evidence-based practices for remote and online teaching.

We are also prioritizing classes for in-person delivery whose academic outcomes are difficult to achieve virtually (e.g., computer labs, performance classes, studios).

Finally, the Boulder campus is going to great lengths to modify our campus operations in a way that will allow us to safely provide on-campus experiences for our students. The Boulder campus continues to make significant investments in our COVID-19 health and safety infrastructure in order to provide a safe learning and working environment for our students, staff and faculty. 

A contingency team made up of the leads for each implementation team will prepare a contingency plan for the possibility of a fully remote fall semester.

Students and faculty traveling during fall break and then returning to campus could put the health and safety of the campus at risk. For this reason, the decision was made to move all instruction to remote and online after fall break. In-person teaching will happen as much as possible before Thanksgiving, while promoting student, faculty and staff safety.

Students will still receive the full fall semester curriculum, including taking finals, using the latest instructional design modalities and tools to maximize engagement between students, their peers and professors. Please visit Teaching Modalities & Technology Mapping for more information.

Shortening fall break and conducting all classes remotely or online after fall break will help us avoid potential COVID-19 outbreaks toward the end of the semester as much as possible. Students will still receive the full benefit of class instruction through the end of the semester. To see the updated schedule for fall 2020, please visit Shortened Fall Break 2020 & Downstream Calendar Changes.

There are no plans to adjust or remove fees for the 2020-21 academic year. Student fees did not increase for the upcoming academic year, despite the fact that changes for fall required expansion of infrastructure that supports student activities both online and in person.

The Student Activity Fee, managed by CU Student Government (CUSG), is voted on and paid for by all students in support of a variety of resources and services. Those services will still be available to students, although the details about how they may change to promote the health and safety of campus are still being decided. Some services already existed online prior to COVID-19. Other services may move some elements online for this fall while some will still be available in person. Examples of student-fee-supported services that will still be available this fall include:

• Access to the Student Recreation Center with possible changes to hours along with changes to some services in order to protect the health and safety of students. 
• The Center for Student Involvement will continue to host events and support student organizations. 
• The Volunteer Resource Center will still serve as the central point of volunteer opportunities and food assistance during this time.
• Off-Campus Housing and Neighborhood Relations and Student Legal Services continue to support students in person and online.

To learn more about the Student Activity Fee specifically, please visit Who We Fund and What We Fund on CUSG’s website. 

Other student fees support services like student health management and information technology infrastructure, including remote learning guidance for students, staff and faculty. Fees also assist with costs to maintain facilities and debt obligations, as well as salaries and benefits for student and staff employees who support these services. For these reasons, student fees will not be adjusted for fall 2020.

Yes. Fall break will be shortened to Thursday and Friday only, with classes continuing through the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. After fall break, all classes will be remote (synchronous) or online (asynchronous) through the end of the semester.

This discourages travel during break, and allows students to travel home and remain there until the spring semester, reducing the chances of carrying the virus back and forth between home and campus.

• Testing will not be a condition for enrollment.

• However, part of our fall plan includes having in place robust on-campus testing capability for students, faculty and staff with symptoms. 

• Our COVID-ready campus implementation team will establish protocols for this testing in the coming weeks.

• We will be encouraging the continuation of remote work for all who can successfully work remotely through the fall so that we can decrease the density on campus and mitigate the exposure of those whose work requires being on campus. 

• Leadership of each unit with a physical presence on campus will be required to complete a risk mitigation plan and receive approval for that plan before personnel can return to campus.

• Consistent with Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment guidelines, We will be enabling employees who are particularly vulnerable to COVID infection to work remotely.

• The Road Map to Fall 2020 establishes implementation teams for each of the three major sections of the plan, and those teams are already meeting to engage campus units in next steps. 

• The flexibility built into the plan also enables the added benefit of preparing the campus for a variety of COVID-19 scenarios that could arise. 

• The Road Map emphasizes that the implementation process will be iterative, and that the campus will continue to update and improve the model based on feedback received from the campus community.

• Early in this process, campus leadership acknowledged and agreed with feedback from students and faculty expressing the importance of beginning the fall semester on Aug. 24.

• We stated weeks ago that our desire is to provide a hybrid on-campus experience, and we felt that keeping the academic year timeline and the student experience as intact as possible was crucial to providing a robust on-campus model.

• We realize that we will need several health and safety guardrails in place to achieve this timeline and ensure the well-being of our campus community. We believe our plan places a great deal of focus and importance on establishing such guardrails.

• The Road Map to Fall 2020 has been a weeks-long effort that included consultation with and feedback from hundreds of campus stakeholders. 

• We are confident that we can begin moving forward with implementation.

• That said, the plan emphasizes that the implementation process will be iterative, and that the campus will continue to update and improve the model based on feedback received from the campus community.

Childcare-related needs and alternatives for all campus community members with children—based on the decisions of surrounding K-12 school districts—will be closely monitored and incorporated into planning, in collaboration with Staff Council and other shared governance groups.