Return to Campus
Guiding Principles
Louisiana Tech University’s policies and protocols for responding to the COVID-19 pandemic will be focused on working to ensure health and safety for all members of the Tech Family. Protecting the health of our campus community will require long-term effort and commitment, cooperation, teamwork and understanding – all values that our community has shown in a multitude of ways in recent months.
Louisiana Tech’s plans for expanding operations and increasing the presence of faculty, staff, and students will be guided by the following criteria:
- The intentional effort by all faculty, staff and students to exercise both personal and community responsibility. The combined efforts by all members of the Tech Family will create a culture that sustains a healthy and safe on-campus environment.
- Existing and projected government restrictions (safer-at-home orders, masking requirements, physical distancing, gatherings, etc.).
- Public health status: recommendations from federal government, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and state and local authorities.
- Resource availability: including personal protective equipment for students, faculty and staff.
- Contact tracing and case management protocols.
- Physical-distancing strategies.
- Financial feasibility.
- Alignment with Louisiana Tech’s strategic framework that the return to campus activities will support primary mission objectives of the institution (on-campus teaching and instruction; on-campus residential living and learning; on-campus research and economic development activities).
Phase One
- Care for the health and safety of our students, faculty, and staff
- Ensure our students continue to make progress toward their academic goals
- Maintain open, accurate and regular communications with faculty, staff, students, and the public
- Continue to telework as much as possible
- No physical gatherings
- Provide flexibility for employees who are high-risk or live with high-risk family members
- Emphasize social distancing, handwashing, increased sanitation, staying home when sick, and use of cloth face coverings
- Be compassionate and flexible with faculty and staff
- Monitor guidance and campus conditions and adjust plans and policies as needed
- Begin to reintroduce research and innovation activities to campus
Phase Two
- Care for the health and safety of our students, faculty, and staff
- Ensure our students continue to make progress toward their academic goals
- Return necessary staff to campus to gradually increase capacity of each department
- Focus on exceeding CDC recommendations for campus hygiene and cleaning
- Maintain open, accurate and regular communications with faculty, staff, students, and the public
- Limit space utilization to 50 percent or less
- Provide flexibility for employees who are high-risk or live with high-risk family members
- Emphasize social distancing, handwashing, increased sanitation, staying home when sick, and use of cloth face coverings
- Be compassionate and flexible with faculty and staff
- Monitor guidance and campus conditions and adjust plans and policies as needed
Phase Three
- Caring for the health and safety of our students, faculty, and staff
- Ensuring our students continue to make progress toward their academic goals
- Emphasize social distancing, handwashing, increased sanitation, staying home when sick, and use of cloth face coverings
- Be compassionate and flexible with faculty and staff
- Monitor guidance and campus conditions and adjust plans and policies as needed
Going forward
- Caring for the health and safety of our students, faculty, and staff
- Ensuring our students continue to make progress toward their academic goals