WKU News

Western Kentucky University is pushing ahead with plans to bring students back to campus in the fall.

WKU’s Amy Bingham takes a closer look at Big Red Restart, the comprehensive reopening plan for Fall 2020, in this week’s View from the Hill.

Flexibility and adaptability are key to the success of The Big Red Restart Plan.  It’s a document that will continue to be modified as administrators look for the safest way possible to bring the WKU community back to the hill.

"There's so much unknown still.  What we do know from the Big Red Restart plan is that we're opening in the fall."

WKU's four sub groups of the COVID-19 Task Force have been working hard to establish a plan to restart WKU in August.

"The thing that's most important about coming back is that we have to learn to live beside the virus until there's a vaccine."

The plan’s calendar calls for in-person instruction to happen from August 24 through November 20.  Following a full week off for Thanksgiving, students will finish the semester, including finals, virtually. 

"If there's likely to be a second wave it's likely to begin sometime around cold and flu season which begins sometime in mid-November."

Plexiglass and other types of barriers are already being added to parts of campus.

Other measures will include social distancing, face masks, health checks and reconfiguration of areas.

"We're working on establishing some guidelines and really developing a culture where it's a norm on our campus."

Most importantly, giving students the safest experience possible.

"It's just not gonna look necessarily like what they thought it would look like because there has to be some precautions."

"We all want to return to some kind of normalcy but the only way we get back to something that looks like normal is by doing things very differently."

President Caboni says some 800 responses that have come in about the plan. You can review it  for yourself at www.wku.edu/restart.