aTm and Tech To Be On Campus For Fall Football

[LongJim]

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/04/30/texas-am-tech-universities-reopen-fall-football/

 

 

[Hunter Green]

Lets play ball!!

[NorthTexasSportsNetwork]

Saw the president said we are having possibly in person classes in the fall? Correct me if I’m wrong

[ipd054]

This e-mail was sent to students and parents yesterday:

Thursday, April 30, 2020  Dear UNT students, It has been almost two months since I last saw you on our beautiful campus. I miss you and the hustle and bustle of campus life. During this time, we have all been adapting to virtual services, remote and online classes, and shelter in place. I hope you are doing well, that you are staying safe and healthy, and are making progress. Like me, I suspect you are looking forward to being together again to live, learn, and enjoy our rich campus experience. Our leadership teams have been working hard to help us begin the transition from remote learning back to more normal campus operations. Today, I want to inform you that we plan to begin limited in-person teaching as early as Summer II and are planning on safely resuming campus learning and residential life for Fall 2020. As we plan for our return to campus, the new normal will be different. Your safety is our top priority, and we will take every precaution to keep our community safe in this new world. We are assessing options and precautions for eventually returning to campus for all in-person activities and programs, ranging from lab-based research to general instruction and the undergraduate residential experience. Of course, these plans depend on continuing improvement in COVID-19 cases, and guidance from federal, state, and local health authorities to ensure your safety. We will be communicating in the coming weeks about what exactly you can expect when you return to campus. This global health crisis also has had a financial impact on all of us. I want you to know if you need help of any kind you can get access to our many services at the Start Green Stay Green website (https://www.unt.edu/staygreen). We are here for you through these challenging times. Many of you have been hit hard by the current economy, and we are doing our best to balance easing financial burdens with providing the top quality UNT education and experience you deserve. If you are experiencing financial insecurity, please apply for assistance from our emergency grants-in-aid program available through the CARES Act. These funds are available now and are meant to help you pay your bills so you can stay in school and earn your degree as planned. Applications for the emergency grants-in-aid program can be completed at htt ps://tinyurl.com/UNTStudentSuccessFA.   Despite the many weeks apart, we have become an even stronger, more connected UNT community through this shared adversity. I hope someday we look back at this time and see not just the challenges, but also the love and care we gave one another. We will emerge from this global health crisis stronger and more united as the Mean Green Family than ever before. UNT proud, Neal Smatresk UNT President

[Christopher Walker]

July 6 is going to be the big deciding day for UNT per the academic units meeting we had today. Smatresk, Cowley, and McClellan gave a really informative briefing that detailed the initial steps to re-open including lab and soft clinical practices over the next two months. Summer instruction is still fully-online until the SUM II term at which point we'll know by gating protocol to what degree the Fall will look like. 

The campus leadership was really pleased with the response readiness of the university personnel and now know we can all convert to fully-online instruction within two-weeks notice. We got $14.5M in Cares Act stimulus the vast majority of which has been directly applied to student assistance with matching funds raised for international and undocumented cohorts. We've also been amongst the speediest at getting this money in the hands of recipients, totaling more than 6,000 applicants, while there are still major university systems across the country that have not yet made distributions to even a 10th of those figures. A lot of our funding was prioritized by the federal government because we're an MMI and HSI - majority-minority and Hispanic-serving institution. Because of that aid, our retention numbers are not as dire as peer institutions; we're currently up year-over-AY for Summer enrollment and nearly even for Fall. However, international enrollment is a chief concern as those students' tuition payments are substantial. Through M&O and hiring freezes, the university was largely able to halt any massive shortages we would have otherwise faced in this pandemic. Only looking at 5% cuts to budgets for AY21.

Right now, all planning for mass gatherings are still suspended for the Fall. This could still have large impacts on performance-oriented curriculum such as music, dance, theater, and of course athletics. We also learned on this call that Smatresk has rejoined the roster for the NCAA board of governors and is abiding by their collective decision making and guidelines for Fall sports. He's confident we'll have a football season, but made one line of comment that it could be abridged. He also gave other details about plans for athletics staffing to start re-meeting and eventually seeing students, again starting in July.

Edited May 3, 2020 by Christopher Walker

[xyresic]

Love to hear they are on the ball and the school is handling this adversity so well. Awesome that the student grants turned around so quickly I’m sure they were hit hard job wise w things like restaurants closing.

[GrandGreen]

If NT has to social distance for basketball, at least we have the arena for it.

Passing someone in rolls might be an issue, unless they let people in by location.