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