Virginia Tech president hopes to resume on-campus classes

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) — The president of Virginia Tech President says he is hopeful the school will be able to hold classes on campus this fall, but said no final decision will be made until next month.

The Roanoke Times reports that President Tim Sands told local government leaders during a call Friday that the fall “is an opportunity for us to bring the campus back to life to some degree" after the campus shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Sands said it is too early to predict what Tech’s fall semester would look like exactly, but he indicated the university aims to hold some in-person classes on campus.

“Maybe not every class, but some classes are going to have to be, I think, in parallel, online and in person, because we won’t have the ability, at least early in the fall, to have large classes with very high-density occupation,” Sands said.

“We don’t expect it to be exactly like it was, say, last fall,” he added, noting the likelihood of continued public health guidelines such as physical distancing.

Radford University’s president on Tuesday announced the school would resume in-person classes on campus beginning on Aug. 24.