sent to all UW students, faculty and staff Friday morning, “classes will no longer meet in person” and faculty and staff will conduct classes and exams “remotely, as possible” and “online when feasible” starting Monday until March 20, the end of the winter quarter. In-person classes are expected to resume on March 30.
School facilities will remain open. The school also recommended “social distancing” for student groups and events. “In-person classes qualify as events, and the sizes of our classrooms do not generally allow for social distancing,” school officials said in the email to explain the shift to remote classes.Spring on the University of Washington campus on March 20, 2018, in Seattle.
Officials at the school, the first university in the U.S. to close classrooms in response to the coronavirus outbreak, said they made the decision in consultation with health officials. The main campus of UW, Washington state’s flagship public university, is located in Seattle, where a number of COVID-19 cases have been confirmed.