The Big Transition – Inside Higher Ed
The University of Washington was one of the first U.S. institutions to move online amid the pandemic. Here’s how faculty say the transition is going.
The University of Washington was the first major U.S. college or university to announce, amid rising concerns about the coronavirus’s spread, that it would move instruction online. At that point Seattle was the epicenter of the disease in the United States.
The UW campuses were kept open for students who had nowhere else to go, but many chose to leave.
Preliminary data from the university showed occupancy on campus for this spring is about 22 to 24 percent of what it was in the fall. Though the university is enrolling more registered students this spring than last, it saw an increased number of student withdrawals after March 18, when it announced the move to remote instruction for the full spring quarter. From that day to March 29, there were 225 withdrawals, compared to 153 in the same period last year.
We checked in with faculty members at the university to ask how the transition was going for them and their students.