Contradictory Report on UC Policy for January

Tuesday, December 21, 2021

There is a contradictory report in the San Diego Union-Tribune today about UC policy concerning January classes. It says that UC-San Diego is going online for the beginning of its January session and that the other UC campuses are going to do the same. But it also says that all campuses may not.

Contradictory news reports are not a Good Thing. There is nothing yet on the UCOP website about any UC-wide developments, not is there anything new on the UCLA website at this writing (early Tuesday afternoon). See below for the news report:

UC San Diego said on Tuesday that it will temporarily push classes back online for at least the first two weeks of January due to the spread of Omicron, a decision that also might be adopted by some or all of the University of California’s eight other undergraduate campuses. UC President Michael Drake said in a statement Tuesday that he has asked all of the campuses to come up with a plan to mitigate the impact of the new COVID-19 variant.

“This may require campuses to begin the term using remote instruction in order to allow students to complete an appropriate testing protocol as they return to campus,” Drake said...

A UCSD official told the Union-Tribune early Tuesday that all of the campuses were planning to go back online, based on discussions La Jolla has been having with its sister schools. The discussions included new research from UCSD that shows Omicron surging strongly in California early next month. Drake’s office said such action might not be necessary.

Full story at:

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/education/story/2021-12-21/university-ofcalifornia-classes-online-omicron.

Of the 8 Jan. 3 Starting Date Campuses, 4 Have Gone Online: Radio S...

Tuesday, December 21, 2021

Our previous post noted that UC-San Diego was going online for the initial weeks of January. It appears that UC-Irvine, UC-Riverside, and UC-Santa Cruz are now also going online to start.*

All of these going-online campuses have January 3 starting dates for instruction. (UCBerkeley, with a start date of January 18 for instruction is also going online, as we have previously reported.)

UCLA has a start date of January 3 as do UC-Santa Barbara, UC-Davis, and UC-San Francisco. As of around 4 pm this afternoon, nothing has been heard from them. (UCMerced has a start date of January 18 but has reported no decision.)

As we have also previously pointed out, the start date of January 3 leaves little time for

adaptation. So far, however, we have only radio silence from UCLA other than the previously-reported statement that a decision would be made this week.

* https://dailynexus.com/2021-12-21/uc-system-goes-online-for-first-two-weeks-of-winterquarter/.