UNLV aims for 50-50 mix of in-person, remote classes in fall

UNLV announced Thursday it’s aiming for a 50-50 mix of in-person and remote classes for its fall semester.

The university will notify students by early July via the MyUNLV online portal which classes will offered in-person or remotely, Interim Executive Vice President and Provost Chris Heavey wrote Thursday in a message to students.

Nevada colleges and universities closed their campuses in March because of the COVID-19 outbreak and remote instruction continued for the rest of the school year. This month, the Nevada System of Higher Education announced plans to resume in-person classes this fall and on a limited basis for the second half of the summer.

Heavey’s message provided a look at what fall classes might look like.

“We are looking forward to welcoming you in the fall semester for what we hope and plan to be a more normal semester than the one you just valiantly completed,” he wrote. “We are indeed planning for in-person instruction but, to keep everyone safe, there will be many more remote course offerings so that we can reduce population density and minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmission on our campuses.”

This fall, all UNLV lecture classes with 75 or more students will be held remotely, Heavey wrote. “Additional courses will be shifted to remote instruction in consultation with instructors based on risk mitigation, suitability for remote delivery and other factors.”

If a UNLV student is registered for an in-person class that is moved to remote instruction, he or she won’t be charged a distance education fee, he said.

This fall, the university’s health programs — including medicine, dental, nursing, physical therapy and occupational therapy — “will operate under different procedures due to the unique nature of their curricula,” Heavey wrote.

Program directors will contact affected students to provide information.

Contact Julie Wootton-Greener at jgreener@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2921. Follow @julieswootton on Twitter.