Marquette University Announces Coronavirus Plans and Changes

The finalized plan of action regarding COVID-19 as was promised on Wednesday was announced by Marquette University late Thursday morning. If you’ve been paying attention to various announcements and plans around the country from higher educational institutions, then none of what you’re about to read should be a surprise to you.

• In-person classes are suspended through March 20th. The university is currently on spring break through Monday, March 16th, so this really only deals with what was going to happen after that. This is not an extension of spring break according to the university, so if all y’all students out there have papers due between now and 3/20, you still have to have those done on time. Professors should be contacting students at some point to explain the specifics for their individual classes because.......
• All instruction between March 23 and April 10th will be online only. That leads us to point #3, which is......
• Students who live in university owned housing, both residence halls and apartments, are to not return to campus until April 10th. If you have something in your dorm room or apartment that you’re going to need over the next month, then the university will allow you to come pick it up on Sunday, March 15, between 8am and 4pm. I have no idea what you’re supposed to do if you’re on break at home in, say, California and can’t stay on campus until April 10, but it is what it is. If you live in an apartment in the area that’s not owned by the university, it’s up to you to figure out what you want to do.
• All on-campus university sponsored events with more than 50 attendees are suspended until April 10th. We’ll circle back to this in a second.

That’s the most important stuff. If you have more questions, there’s a FAQ that the university put together.

It’s not specifically said, so I wanted to separate this out to make the point that this is just me connecting the dots. I presume that the ban on 50+ attendee events would mean that the three home men’s lacrosse games between now and April 10th as well as the one on the 11th are essentially cancelled. The mere nature of lacrosse rosters means that there would be more than 50 people present to just play the game. Same thing goes for women’s lacrosse, which has two home games scheduled between now and April 10. On top of suspending the events, the fact that the freshmen and sophomores on those two teams are prohibited from returning to their res halls kind of puts a damper on practice happening, much less gathering to travel to road contests. Same thing for track & field, golf, and tennis.

This is still a fluid situation, so there will most likely be further information and developments coming from the university administration. I’m just passing it along to you, so if you have questions, you need to talk to them.