Touro College Re-Opening Plan Fall 2020
Our re-opening plan has been carefully planned and crafted over the past months, informed by public health professionals and with input from students, faculty, staff and administration. We plan to open on-time in accordance with the published academic calendar that contains various start-dates for our varied programs and schools. While it is our intention to offer classes and certain labs in person, this will be accomplished using methods to reduce building and classroom density in accordance with government recommendations.
The full plan is available for download and outlined below, but in short, it’s all about:
Screening & Testing
As part of screening and testing, Touro College will require all students and employees to respond to a series of screening questions on their personal devices prior to arriving on campus each day.
Optimizing Presence On-Campus
Social Distancing & Masks
More Cleaning & Disinfecting
Classes will be offered:
In-person
Experiential classes – labs, fieldwork, student teaching – that need in-person attendance will be offered as such as long as regulations and circumstances allow.
Hybrid
In-person didactic classes will have a synchronous remote option to allow for reduced capacity and a student’s comfort with and ability to attend in-person.
Online
We offer many classes online and will continue to do so.
Our plan is organized around:
Shared Responsibility
Opening the campuses for students, faculty and staff with a new culture of shared responsibility for public health and compliance with federal, state and local guidelines
Continued Monitoring
Strategies for monitoring health and safety of the campus community in accordance with mandated public health best practices at the time
Containment Protocols
Containment should an outbreak of COVID-19 occur at any of our campus locations
Alternate Plans
Plans should any of our campuses be required to temporarily suspend in-person activities
Plan Outline
Extracurriculars & Vulnerable Populations
The guiding principles behind our plan are:
Protect
Protect the health and safety of the Touro College community
Educate
Continue to deliver high-quality academic programs
Adapt
Adopt and adapt as necessary
Touro Responsibilities
Touro will stay up-to-date on guidance issued by New York State by reviewing the NY Forward website (forward.ny.gov) and applicable executive orders at governor.ny.gov/executiveorders on a periodic basis or whenever notified of the availability of new guidance.
While this Plan was created to provide enhanced health and safety measures for our Campus Community, with the intention of mitigating the risk of COVID-19 on Touro campuses and any potential spread within our campus community, Touro acknowledges that elimination of all risk on campus -while still operating with on-campus classes, residential housing and campus events -is impossible.
If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to email: EVPTOURO@TOURO.EDU
Touro Resources
- Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund Reporting
- touro.edu/TCNYworkingremotely
- help.touro.edu
- International Student Services COVID-19 Updates
- Setting up call forwarding
- www.touro.edu/directory
