Undergraduate Teaching During COVID-19

Introduction: Universities were challenged during the COVID-19 pandemic to continue providing quality education for their students while navigating the uncertainties of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Objectives: The goal of this article is to describe strategies used by Colorado State University (CSU) to mitigate SARS-CoV-2 transmission among faculty, staff, and students and to describe procedures used in microbiology teaching laboratories. Methods: Information concerning CSU's pandemic response was gathered via email communications to the CSU community, town hall meetings, and interviews with leaders, researchers, and staff who spearheaded public health initiatives. Results: To date, there have been no known cases of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the classroom. Early strategies that contributed to this success included social norming of safe public health behaviors, development of low-cost, rapid screening and surveillance methods, an online COVID-19 reporting system, contact tracing and quarantine, rearranging classrooms to reduce the capacity by 50%, increasing air flow, enhanced cleaning and production of sanitizer, and flexible instructors who quickly changed their courses for remote delivery or launched extra risk management procedures for face-to-face delivery of laboratory, performance, or studio classes. Conclusion: Intense collaboration among the CSU community, open and frequent communication, coordination of efforts, flexible instructors, and the willingness to follow safe public health behaviors allowed CSU to continue face-to-face teaching in courses that required hands-on learning or demanded in-person instruction. It is the hope of the authors that this information can provide both a historical account and useful information for others dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.