On-Campus Classroom Space During COVID-19

How will health and safety precautions impact classroom space in Fall 2020?

One of the most important consequences of maintaining social distancing during the current public health crisis is that classrooms will be able to hold only about 1/3 of their normal capacity. Thus, a section with 30 students that could fit comfortably into many classrooms on campus must now be scheduled in a classroom that has a normal capacity of about 90 students. Loyola does not have many classroom spaces this large since our average class size is much smaller than 90.

In the last several weeks, the Loyola planning team has scoured our campuses to identify new spaces that can be used for on-campus instruction this year. Thus, many classes this fall will be held in spaces that have never been used as classrooms, including the Sister Jean Multipurpose Room, Norville Center rooms, and the Damen Den, among others. But even with these additional new spaces for classrooms, our total usable classroom capacity will be approximately 1/3 of normal. Because of this, it is simply not possible to hold every one of our 3,600 scheduled sections in a classroom this semester, and students may have to take some of their classes online.