The Office of the Registrar has updated its Fall Quarter scheduling page to reflect changes in meeting times, enrollment and classroom capacities in light of social distancing and coronavirus-related provisions.

Individual departments plan to gather additional information to update their fall class details so that class schedules can be made available in early August, to be published to students on CAESAR on August 10. The Registrar’s timeline also states that undergraduate preregistration is tentatively scheduled to begin August 17.

NU must also submit their plan to U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement by August 1 in compliance with the new regulations regarding international student visas, which means ICE will see fall class details before students do.

According to the timeline, deans have already identified which classes will be face-to-face and the Registrar’s Office has assigned rooms to face-to-face classes. In late July, the Registrar’s Office will assign rooms to hybrid classes. Departments will review and update room assignments and class details in early August before schedules are available to students.

One major change in scheduling is that standard meeting patterns are required to incorporate 20-minute passing periods — a change from the normal 10-minute period — which will affect the typical start and end time of classes in order to allow staggered entry and exit from classroom buildings. Evening meeting patterns have been added to increase flexibility.

Classroom capacities have also been reduced due to social distancing requirements. Most rooms will seat only 20 to 30 percent of their normal capacity. Under these restrictions, most Registrar-controlled general-purpose classrooms will seat fewer than 15 students.

For example, the Registrar Office indicated that Harris Hall L06, which normally seats 30 students, can only fit nine socially-distanced students — about 30 percent of the original capacity. Diagrams provided by the Registrar show students and instructors spread out with a six-foot radius between each seat.

Ryan Family Auditorium, located in the Northwestern Technological Institute, typically seats 600. Under the Registrar’s restrictions, the largest lecture hall controlled by the office will hold a maximum of 156 students. Lunt Hall 102, which typically seats 12, would only fit one student.

The Registrar’s Office also identified four modes of instruction for Fall Quarter: synchronous, asynchronous, hybrid and face-to-face. Synchronous and asynchronous classes would be entirely remote, the former with an on-schedule start and end time and the latter without a scheduled meeting time.

Hybrid classes would have a combination of remote components and in-person meetings in a campus space. Face-to-face classes would meet in-person in a campus space. There is no information about how many classes will be allocated per each of these modes of instruction.

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— Academic calendar updated for Fall Quarter, classes to start Sept. 16