Stanford Swimmers Still Hoping to Train On Campus After School Goes Remote

Stanford University is the latest school to announce that it will start the 2020-2021 academic year this fall mostly virtual.

The school previously had a plan in place that would have seen freshmen, sophomore, and new transfer undergraduates on campus for the first quarter of the year in residence, but Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne announced on Thursday that instruction would be “mostly remote” this fall.

The school is still allowing students who have applied for on campus housing due to ‘special circumstances’ to live on campus, though their instruction would still be done remotely.

Stanford, which is on the quarter system, has one of the latest start dates in the country, with classes scheduled to begin September 14. The school says that “if public health conditions allow,” they still plan to welcome back freshmen, sophomores, and new transfer students for the winter quarter, and juniors and seniors for the spring quarter. The winter quarter begins on January 11.

Stanford head women’s swimming & diving coach Greg Meehan says that this decision specifically revolves around the academic side of the university, and doesn’t necessarily apply to athletics, and that he feels confident that the program will continue to be able to train.

“Today’s announcement was specific to on-campus housing and in-person instruction,” Meehan said. “We have been training at Stanford for 2 months now and are continuing to work with the athletics department on a plan for training for the fall semester.”

Stanford, like the rest of the Pac-12, at a minimum won’t have any intercollegiate athletics competition for the fall semester after the conference announced a cancellation or postponement of athletics for the semester earlier this week.

The Stanford women’s swimming & diving team are the three-time defending NCAA Division I Champions. Their quest to win a fourth-straight title has gotten tougher over the last two weeks after two of their incoming star freshmen opted to defer their college careers by a year. World Record holder Regan Smith, the #1 recruit in the class, and the #6 recruit in the class Lillie Nordmann have both decided to wait until the fall of 2021 to begin their Stanford careers.

Stanford’s Avery Aquatic Center is an outdoor facility, which should create a lower-risk environment for training than other schools will have.

The state of California, like most of the country, has seen a dramatic rise in new positive tests for the coronavirus since early June. That peaked at over 10,000 new daily cases in late July. The numbers began receding dramatically for 2 weeks after, but have once again begun rising again, including in northern California where Stanford is located.

Full Letter announcing the decision:

Dear Stanford community,

I am writing to let you know that, with great regret, we have made the decision to alter the provisional plans we had announced in June for undergraduate education during the coming autumn quarter. As eager as we have been to bring undergraduates back to campus and to pursue as normal a year as possible, we have concluded for reasons I will explain below that the public health situation due to COVID-19 simply does not make it feasible at this time.

We will not be able to invite first-year, sophomore and new transfer undergraduate cohorts to be in residence on campus for the autumn quarter, as we had hoped. We also are planning for almost all undergraduate instruction to be delivered remotely during the autumn quarter, with very limited in-person offerings. We will continue to offer on-campus housing for those undergraduates who were previously approved to be in residence due to a special circumstance and who continue to wish to be on campus, despite the plan for mostly remote instruction.

Our initial plans for the coming year were developed amid a changing public health situation. At the time, it was reasonable to expect that the situation would continue to improve by this point in the summer. However, as we all have seen, there has been a dramatic reversal in California’s reopening due to the increased spread of COVID-19. There have now been nearly 600,000 COVID-19 cases and more than 10,000 deaths in California, and much of the state, including all of the Bay Area, has been placed on a “watch list” due to worsening trends in public health indicators. In the face of these developments we warned our community that we might have to change our plans, and we have been monitoring trends as we awaited public health guidance, which we knew to be imminent. In parallel, we have been addressing other ramifications of the public health situation, including the Tuesday decision of the Pac-12 to postpone fall sports competition, which was a difficult but necessary step.

Last Friday, the State of California issued guidance for institutions of higher education to inform reopening considerations. We believe this guidance is thoughtful and responsible, reflecting a continued commitment by the State to control the pandemic. The guidance also reflects the deep challenges associated with trying to provide anything close to a “normal” on-campus undergraduate experience given the current state of the pandemic. Significantly, the guidance does not allow most indoor classes as long as the county in which a college or university is located is on the state’s watch list. The guidance also currently prohibits communal dining, most gatherings and social events, the use of indoor common spaces such as lounges, visitors to campus, and other aspects of campus life.

The living, dining and academic experiences of our graduate and professional students are generally quite different than those of our undergraduates. Even with the new guidance, we remain confident in our plans for these students to continue to reside and pursue their degrees on campus if they wish to. We will continue to provide information to graduate students about health protocols, academic program plans and other issues of concern to them.

However, the public health challenges associated with bringing large numbers of undergraduates back to campus dormitory residences under current health conditions, coupled with the limited nature of the on-campus experience we would be able to offer, have led us to the conclusion we are announcing today for our undergraduates. We wanted to share this information with you as quickly as possible following the issuance of the State’s guidance, knowing that many undergraduates and families have travel plans that have been pending. We expect that you will have many questions, and we will be back in touch shortly with more information on issues related to residential staff, international students, financial aid, housing details for undergraduates approved to live on campus due to a special circumstance, and other important topics.

We will continue planning with the hope and expectation of bringing undergraduates back to Stanford at the earliest possible time. If public health conditions allow, we plan to invite frosh, sophomores and new transfer students to be in residence on campus for the winter quarter, and juniors and seniors for the spring quarter. We will turn our attention to summer planning soon. We will share more as we know more, and we will continue to invite your feedback and suggestions.

The timing of our autumn quarter will remain the same as previously announced. Our faculty have been working throughout the summer to create a rich academic experience for the quarter, building on everything we have learned from the online experiences of the spring quarter. That work continues, and all of us at Stanford remain deeply committed to supporting each student in your continued progress toward a Stanford degree. We also appreciate that some students may wish to consider altering their plans. For incoming frosh and transfer students, there will be information on admission.stanford.edu, and for returning students, options for a leave of absence from Stanford will remain available. With respect to undergraduate on-campus housing, if today’s decision gives you concerns about any special circumstances you may have and your access to housing for the autumn, please report your concerns via Service Now by this Sunday, August 16.

This is a disappointing turn of events because so much of what makes Stanford a special place is embodied in the in-person interactions we have here – in the residences, with faculty at office hours, walking with friends across campus, in our student organizations and artistic venues and sporting events. All of us miss the unique, vibrant, palpable spirit of Stanford that is created when we are here together, living and learning in community. Each of us embodies this Stanford spirit, and I am confident that we can sustain the collective energy of our extraordinary community throughout this crisis, until we can be present together once again on the Farm.

Sincerely,

Marc Tessier-Lavigne
President

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Hmmmmm
3 years ago

covid has killed like 200 college aged students in the last 6 months, why are we so scared of it for the college kids?

I get the grandma’s, but come on the grandma’s can’t be tryna make the Olympics.

Jolynn Swimmer
3 years ago

Feel bad for current college students and school aged children. I have just finished my schooling. College days were the best time of my life and for many of us. Psychiatrists and psychologists worry about more mental illness than Covid death in the age group. Fall sports canceled and acitvities canceled. More health issue such as obesity will rise.

Just a side note-most of WA state schools are going online. They are on the other hand increasing child care centers to support working parents..what is the point about school closures? They are waiving background checks for child care workers to speed up the process so that they would be ready in one month when school starts.

HISWIMCOACH
Reply to  Jolynn Swimmer
3 years ago

Great question. In other areas of the country the YMCA is offering childcare on school campuses so kids can do their online learning.

What is the point of any of it? Seems to be the destruction of the middle class and small business.

ddb
3 years ago

Kinda bs if athletes get to be on campus while students do not

Taa
Reply to  ddb
3 years ago

You can’t do your swim training at your parents house.

Frankie 5 Angels
Reply to  Taa
3 years ago

You can’t do your labs at your parents house either

Taa
Reply to  Frankie 5 Angels
3 years ago

You can do the lab next year

CA_LAWYER
Reply to  ddb
3 years ago

Agree, if you are going to cancel the season and keep students off campus, it should apply to the athletes as well. Do they not care about the safety of the athletes?

Taa
Reply to  CA_LAWYER
3 years ago

Lots of kids have been swimming in CA since May. How many caught covid?

Corn Pop
Reply to  Taa
3 years ago

As of 31 July officially no 13 year old has died from covid 19 in Ca. This is on topic re the Maxx Cheng article of July 22 .

CA_LAWYER
Reply to  Taa
3 years ago

It’s a rhetorical question meant to show the hypocrisy of the situation.

OyeVey
Reply to  ddb
3 years ago

My school did the same thing (all online now) – offered on campus “emergency” housing for students who’d be otherwise homeless. What they didn’t tell everyone is that athletes also get a pass and are making up the majority of the few allowed to live in the dorms this semester. But hey..practice starts today I guess ..in a hot spot …. in California

Participant Ribbon
Reply to  OyeVey
3 years ago

Cali is the hottest of the hot spots too.

Smith-King-Dahlia-Manuel
3 years ago

What about Ruck? A return to Toronto?

Saw Guerra
3 years ago

Looks like Kamala Harris & Nancy Pelosi should have been denouncing those “peaceful” protests.

Robert Major
Reply to  Saw Guerra
3 years ago

What idiocy. Contribute something useful or drop out

CA_LAWYER
Reply to  Robert Major
3 years ago

I don’t think Harris will drop out, but I like where you are going with that. Back to the topic at hand though, you would think that a far left state like California would have done better after keeping us all on lockdown than having the highest infection rate in the nation. If California were a country they would have the 5th highest infection rate in the world.

Hank Monroe
Reply to  CA_LAWYER
3 years ago

True, all the more reason to keep the swimmers at home. They need to own their high infection rate and think about the safety of the swimmers.

Justin Thompson
Reply to  Saw Guerra
3 years ago

At least they don’t have antifa burning pigs heads outside the police station like they are doing in Portland. Somebody needs to stand up for the swine.

Saw Guerra
Reply to  Justin Thompson
3 years ago

That’s still PAC-12 country

About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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