Students are back in class both on- and off-campus across the Southern Illinois University system, and administrators hope they can continue through the fall semester with little interruption.
SIU Carbondale classes are roughly 40% online this semester, with 30% in-person and another 30% in a hybrid model.
President Dan Mahony is cautiously optimistic that balance will make it easier to pivot, should COVID-19 spike again.
"Now we know for those, say 30-plus percent of classes that are face-to-face, the instructors are aware that things could change, and are prepared for that a little bit better than they were before. The classes that are hybrid or already online, the adjustment would obviously be much easier."
Meanwhile SIU's next session in its "Conversation of Understanding" series is Tuesday evening (video link here) - focusing on hate speech and social media.
Mahony says it's not going to be an easy discussion - but that it is necessary. He also plans to announce some changes that are being made after a similar discussion earlier this summer.
"What's interesting is, we went through it all - a lot over a short period of time. Universities don't usually do a lot of the summer, but we did quite a bit. There's still a lot more to do, but we've made some progress."
The conversation starts at 5:00pm.
When it comes to enrollment, numbers won't be released for another week - but Mahony and other administrators say there's room for optimism in the preliminary data.
