COVID-19 causes Georgia Baptist colleges to temporarily move online

DULUTH — Brewton-Parker College, Shorter University, and Truett McConnell University – the three Georgia Baptist-affiliated colleges – have all announced plans to move classes online for a time due to COVID-19.

Truett McConnell is considering March 16-20 an Easter Break. March 23-27 will be a “regularly scheduled class week,” but all classes will be assessed online. At press time, the school had announced that from April 6-10 on-campus classes would resume “unless further changes are made.”

All activities on campus are cancelled until April 1, as well, but will resume afterwards. During the two-week break, all facilities are closed. However, President Emir Caner recognized that this is a “fluid situation” and advised the TMU community to look for updates in their inboxes.

Brewton-Parker originally felt that their “area is one of the safest environments for students to be during this time, particularly when considering that many of them come from areas of higher risk.” Therefore the school planned to continue classes as normal except during an extended spring break March 20-April 6. In an updated statement today, however, students learned that classes will continue this week and after a regular spring break March 20-29, would move to a strictly online format.

The statement added that students will be allowed to remain on the BPC campus and “all offices and functions of the college will continue normal operations,” including business hours.

“We realize that the current circumstances are bringing difficulty and disappointment to many,” President Steven F. Echols said in the statement. “Our hearts go out especially to our seniors. Our prayers are with them and all of our students to experience an extra measure of God’s grace.”

In a March 12 statement, Shorter University announced that classes would move from in-person to online from March 23-April 10. This week is seen as a time to transition to that model.

Although cases could be evaluated individually, students were instructed to vacate the residence halls by March 15. To ensure appropriate “social distancing,” all university events have been cancelled until April 10 as well.

All public colleges in the state of Georgia (26 total) as well as public schools are to be closed by Wednesday through the end of the month by order of Governor Brian Kemp.