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An independent student newspaper serving Iowa State since 1890

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FRIDAY

03.13.2020 Vol. 220 No. 117

Switch to online classes causes changes for campus events BY LOGAN.METZGER @iowastatedaily.com

DESIGN BY BROOKLYN WILLIAMS

Online coursework ahead Faculty prepare online agendas for classes BY AMBER.MOHMAND @iowastatedaily.com Amid the fears of COVID-19 spreading, students, faculty and staff are scrambling to transfer their current classes to strictly online. T h e Wo r l d H e a l t h Organization (WHO) declared t h e COV I D - 1 9 a s a g l o b a l pandemic Wednesday, which

resulted in Iowa State President We n d y W i n t e r s t e e n re l e a s ing a statement Wednesday to declare the university will move all classes online from March 23 to April 3. Brad Dell, Iowa State director of theater, said the directing, acting and design classes will be moved to Zoom — a platform for video conferencing. “We are looking [at] having

[to do] some research on contemporary plays and doing some of those presentations,” Dell said. “We’re also looking at them doing monologues rather than scenes and then videoing themselves doing those scenes and uploading them. [...] Our directing class, where students are directing other students, they’re going to be setting up Zoom conferences with their casts.”

An option for design students for the theater department is to take photos of the work and send them to their professors. “We here in this program talk about that it’s all about empowering citizen artistry — that ’s the centerpiece of our program,” Dell said. “I think as citizen artists, we are looking at the

ONLINE

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NCAA announced all winter and spring tournaments are canceled BY ZANE.DOUGLAS @iowastatedaily.com NCAA President Mark Emmert announced the inevitable news Thursday afternoon that the NCAA will be canceling all remaining winter and spring postseason tournaments. The cancelation was determined because of the continued outbreak of COVID-19 across the United States and the individual cancelation of conference basketball tournaments Wednesday afternoon. In a press release, Emmert stated that decision was made in part due to the NCAA’s ability to “ensure the events do not contribute to the spread of the pandemic and the impracticality of hosting such events at any time during the academic year given ongoing decisions by other entities.” The decisions of ongoing entities refers to, in part, the multiple universities across Iowa and the U.S. that announced the cancelation of in-person classes and athletic events. The cancelation of all remaining postseason tournaments affects the NCAA men’s

basketball, women’s basketball, wrestling and track and field postseason tournaments that were slated to take place over the coming weeks. On Wednesday afternoon, Emmert released a statement originally stating the men’s and women’s basketball and wrestling tournaments would continue without fans in attendance, but the increasing number of power five conferences that canceled their individual basketball tournaments. Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby also announced at an 11 a.m. press conference Thursday that the Big 12 will cancel its postseason basketball tournaments completely. The Big 12 quickly followed suit after the Big 10, SEC and the AAC conferences announced their conference tournaments would be shut down immediately. The Pac-12 and the ACC put out statements as well, announcing the cancelation of their conference tournaments. Outside of the college ranks, the NBA announced the remainder of the regular season will be suspended until further notice after

COURTESY WIKIMEDIA COMMONS The NCAA president announced that all winter and spring postseason tournaments will be canceled due to cases of COVID-19.

Utah Jazz players Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell tested positive for COVID-19. The announcement comes just one day after the first round of the men’s side of the Big 12 tournament, in which Oklahoma State defeated Iowa State in the No. 8 vs. No. 9 matchup and No. 10 Kansas State beat No. 7 TCU, witch were both played in front of fans.

After Iowa State’s recent decision to move coursework online March 23 through April 3, some events on campus have been canceled and delayed, while others will continue as planned. Event sponsors and organizers have been working with Iowa State for the last couple of days to evaluate whether or not large events scheduled to take place on campus from March 23 to April 3 should continue. Some groups also are making decisions about campus-based events on additional dates outside the March 23 to April 3 timeline. Entries on the online events calendar are being updated as details are finalized. This is not a comprehensive list, and Iowa State has created guidelines to help groups decide if they should change campus-based events in the future. “Department, college, university and third-party events between March 13 and Saturday, April 4, are to be canceled, postponed or virtualized if the event meets three of the following six criteria,” according to the Changes and Closures part of the coronavirus FAQ page. Is the event expecting 200 or more attendees? Does the venue have size or floor plan limitations that would make social distancing, six feet between people, impractical? Are you expecting attendees who have traveled from international destinations that may be impacted by travel bans or from countries that have stopped reentry during the duration of the event? Are you expecting attendees whose age and health status categorize them as being in vulnerable populations for COVID19 infection, for example, having serious chronic medical conditions or being older adults? Would an increased housekeeping workload exceed the capabilities of the venue’s staff ? Is the event open to the public and does not require attendees to register? One of the biggest groups of events that have been canceled that may affect a wide range of individuals is the Lectures Series programming. All lectures from March 23 to April 10 have been canceled. “The university issued a set of recommendations saying that large group events should be postponed, and we just felt that it was not practical to postpone the events with so much uncertainty, and then because we had a large number of events the week after the initial two-week

EVENTS

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