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Chris Eisgruber, Princeton University's president, said in a letter Monday that the university will wait until early July before deciding whether undergraduate teaching will be online or residential in the fall.
The university is "optimistic" about being able to safely reopen its laboratories, libraries and other facilities, Eisgruber said in his message to the Princeton community. He also said the university anticipates resuming on-campus graduate advising and instruction this summer and fall. But undergraduate education presents more "vexing questions," according to Eisgruber.
On the one hand, everyone at this university values in-person academic engagement and the co-curricular and extracurricular experiences that accompany it. We want to restore residential education as soon as we safely can. On the other hand, the interpersonal engagement that animates undergraduate life makes social distancing difficult. That is partly because undergraduates live in close proximity to one another, but even more fundamentally because they mix constantly and by design in their academic, extracurricular and social lives.
The letter cited the many uncertainties about the pandemic, including whether quick and accurate testing will be available for the fall, or how many people on campus and the surrounding community have been exposed to the virus and might be immune. Eisgruber wrote,
We want our decision to be as fully informed as possible. We will undoubtedly learn more about the course of the pandemic, and about the techniques available to combat it, over the next two months. For that reason, Princeton will wait until early July before deciding whether our undergraduate teaching program will be online or residential in the fall term. I appreciate that this uncertainty can itself add to the distress of this pandemic, but I am convinced that it is the most responsible way for Princeton to proceed.
