March 10, 2021 Update: COVID-19

Preliminary Fall 2021 Update

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Dear Champlain Community:

While the Fall semester is still many months away, we wanted to provide you with our initial plans for Fall 2021. We continue to monitor the pandemic closely and will make adjustments to our plans as needed and required by local, state, and federal guidance when it becomes available for Fall 2021.

This message includes early decisions and thinking on the following topics, with details below: 

• Learning Format & Academic Calendar
• Health & Safety
• Housing 
• Study Abroad

Also, we would like to take this opportunity to remind students, faculty and staff that the Health Department and the College continue to strongly advise against non-essential travel, even within Vermont. All travel to and from Vermont requires quarantine. The only exceptions are essential travel and travel by people who are fully vaccinated. Students, if you have plans to travel outside the state, you are required to notify the College by completing this form which will allow the Student Health Center to advise you on quarantine requirements, including the possibility of arranging quarantine housing.

Learning Format & Academic Calendar

Champlain College will open for in-person teaching and learning in the fall with the goal that classes will be taught face-to-face in the classroom. 

The academic calendar will follow our traditional timeline.

• Semester begins: Monday, August 30
• Fall break: Monday-Tuesday, October 11–12
• November break: November 24–26
• Fall semester ends: December 17

The schedule for fall and summer courses will be available on Monday, March 15th.  This summer we are offering a robust schedule of virtual summer courses for students who want to catch-up or get ahead in their coursework. We encourage students to speak with their faculty advisors between March 15 and April 12 to plan summer and fall courses. Registration will open on Monday, April 12th.

We understand that a return to in-person learning in the classroom may present challenges for some students.  If this applies to you, we encourage you to reach out to your Academic Specialist in the Registrar’s Office for individual discussions on next steps.

Health and Safety

The commitment each of you made to limit the transmission of COVID-19 in our community is working. As President Akande expressed in his email Monday, we need to remain vigilant and not let our success diminish our resolve over the coming months. 

While much remains uncertain about the trajectory of the virus over the next several months, we know that vaccinations play a critical role in reducing spread. We encourage all students, faculty, and staff to schedule vaccination when they become eligible as Vermont residents or through their home state. To assist in our planning for a successful fall, we ask everyone in our community to complete this short survey indicating your intentions to get vaccinated. We will provide additional information about the College’s capacity to provide vaccinations in the coming months.

We expect that a revised Health Pledge will remain in effect for the Fall 2021 semester and that some degree of mask-wearing and social distancing may still be in effect. The need for a weekly testing program will likely be dependent on state guidance and the prevailing vaccination rate.

Housing

We anticipate welcoming more students back to campus this fall than we were able to accommodate in 2020 as we return to double occupancy in rooms intended to house two students. (At this time, we expect that triples, quads and quints will be limited to two students. However, it is possible that these rooms may return to typical occupancy by August.) It is also possible that not all students seeking housing will receive a housing assignment during Housing Selection and that some students may be placed on a waitlist. We will have a greater understanding of the prospect of a waitlist after the initial stage of the Housing Selection process.

Fall 2021 Housing Selection for current students will begin March 15. Full-time sophomores, juniors, and seniors in good academic standing are eligible to apply for housing, and requests will be filled in priority order of cumulative credit hours; rising seniors have first selection, followed by rising juniors and rising sophomores. (Note: New first-year and transfer students apply for housing using a separate process.) Current students will receive an email later today with detailed instructions for Housing Selection. 

We anticipate that students living on-campus for the fall semester will be able to retain their housing assignment for the spring semester and will not be asked to remove their belongings over winter break. We also anticipate following our typical schedule of closing the residence halls at November break, at the end of the fall semester, and at spring break. More information about selecting a residence hall that will remain open during those periods will be available in the Housing Selection email.

Study Abroad

We are currently enrolling students for Fall 2021 at our campuses in Dublin, Ireland and Montreal, Canada and are accepting and approving applications on a rolling basis from now through mid-April. We are closely monitoring the state of the pandemic in those countries, and staff on site are actively planning for students to return. At this time, it is still unknown if international borders or travel with those countries will be allowed, and what health and safety guidelines for each country may entail. 

Preparing for Fall 2021 Important Upcoming Dates:

• March 14 – Returning students: Housing Selection for 194 St Paul Street Closes
• March 15 – Returning students: Housing Selection Applications Open for Main Campus Residence Halls
• March 15 – Fall/Summer Courses Available
• March 28 – Returning students: Housing Selection Applications Close for Main Campus Residence Halls
• April 12 – First Registration Windows Open for Fall and Summer Courses
• June 13 – Incoming students: Housing Preference Form due (please note this date has been extended. It was originally June 1).
• August 1 – Fall Bills Due

As a reminder, all of our COVID-related updates are included on our website, including FAQs, communications, and our testing dashboard. We will continue to update this resource as information becomes available. Questions can be emailed to feedback@champlain.edu. 

Sincerely,

Danelle Berube, VP of Student Affairs
Leslie Averill, VP of Academic Affairs & COO