photo by: Elvyn Jones

The gateway on the east side of Baker University campus in Baldwin City is pictured Saturday, June 20, 2020.

Baker University will welcome back students in August to its Baldwin City campus for the fall semester.

Like other private and public universities in the state, Baker closed its classrooms and campus in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic and finished the spring semester with online classes. Jason Hannah, Baker executive director of marketing and communications, said the university sought feedback from students about what to do in the fall, and they were largely in favor of returning to campus.

“What we heard overwhelmingly from students from comments, surveys and focus groups was they wanted an on-ground experience,” he said.

Nonetheless, Baker is making concessions because of COVID-19. Hannah said a task force of Baker administrators, faculty and students developed the university’s reopening plan, which incorporates the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health.

The Baker plan, which was posted June 15 on the Baker website, will adopt a fall calendar that shortens the semester and eliminates the traditional fall break. Baker’s fall semester will end with the start of the Thanksgiving holiday.

According to a fall semester calendar posted on the Baker University website, students can move into dorms and university apartments starting Aug. 15 and fall semester classes will begin Aug. 17. Fall sports athletes will start reporting for preseason practices as soon as Aug. 3.

Hannah said sharing information with students on COVID-19 and its spread is a feature of the plan. Students, staff and faculty will be asked to self-monitor for COVID-19 symptoms and isolate themselves if they are sick. Those with two or more symptoms will be able to get tested through the county health department.

Students, faculty, staff and campus visitors will be encouraged to wear masks, although the school has not yet made masks mandatory on campus, as the University of Kansas did recently. The plan also calls for increased cleaning and monitoring of dorms with the enforcement of social distancing guidelines. There is to be staggered seating in classrooms, and no class will have an enrollment of more than 40 students, which is not a big concern in a school with an average classroom size of 16 students.

Sports are a big concern on a campus on which the majority of students have athletic scholarships. Hannah said the school’s teams will compete if the Heart of America Conference and NAIA can develop guidelines for fall sports in time.

“We do intend to have competitions,” he said. “The NAIA is still putting the particulars in place for the safety measures for different sports. Right now, we plan to have football this fall. What that means in terms of the fan experience, we don’t know yet.”

Baker has developed a contingency plan should the university be forced to abandon on-campus classes, Hannah said. The school will assess all of the students’ ability to take part in remote classes, including whether they have the necessary technology.

Hannah said Baker does not anticipate an enrollment decline because of the pandemic or the economic downturn it has spawned. The Baldwin City campus, which offers undergraduate classes only, has had an enrollment of about 900 students in recent years.

“We do not anticipate any material change in enrollment,” Hannah said. “We’re hanging steady.”