LYNCHBURG, Va. (WFXR) — As college students get ready for the fall semester, schools are rolling out their plans on how to welcome back students.

If you’re a University of Lynchburg student, for example, you can opt to stay off-campus and learn online. Otherwise, the campus is fully open.

“We’ll socially distance as much as we can in all of our classroom spaces,” said Michael Jones, the Vice President for Communications and Marketing at the University of Lynchburg. “We have been moving furniture around on campus to make sure students are at a safe distance. We have plexiglass installed in a variety of locations around campus.”

“Students are required to wear masks whenever in a building.”

If a student thinks they’re sick, Jones says there are resources available.

“Our student health center can test. So they’ll be able to test. Student comes in and is suspected and is tested, that student will have to be isolated. We do have room set aside to isolate on campus.”

Across town at Randolph College, the school’s president announced Thursday, July 23, all classes will be online, saying testing wasn’t widely available enough or fast enough to safely reopen campus.

“Without that quick turnaround asymptomatic testing, you can’t do contact tracing,” said Bradley Bateman, the President of Randolph College. “Without those two things, you can’t control the spread of the disease in your community.”

Bateman says the shutdown in the spring proved that every class can be adapted to teach online, even classes like theater.

“We created class modules that taught the students how to tape their own acting and submit it online for review by other people in the class. That’s an important professional skill to have.”

According to Bateman, Randolph College students will receive a revised bill with room and board fees removed.

WFXR News also reached out to Liberty University and Sweet Briar College to discuss reopening plans, but neither responded.

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