Chicago Booth Business School Goes Online After Outbreak
Chicago Booth Business School Goes Online After Covid Outbreak
(Bloomberg) -- The University of Chicago’s business school, one of the world’s most prestigious, said it is moving to remote classes for two weeks after a number of students tested positive for Covid-19 following an off-campus gathering.
Students were informed of the move on Wednesday, according to an email sent from Michele Rasmussen, dean of students at the university, and Eric Heath, associate vice president for safety and security. The school confirmed the email.
Colleges have been grappling with outbreaks since students returned to campuses for the fall semester. The University of North Carolina pivoted to remote classes in August just a week after school began after a large share of students tested positive. Around the same time, the University of Notre Dame in Indiana moved to remote classes for two weeks to try to quell an outbreak.
Many higher education administrators have hoped that graduate schools, especially business schools, might be more immune to Covid outbreaks because students are older and more experienced. With around 1,200 full-time MBA students, who began courses only a few weeks ago, Booth is one of the largest business schools in the U.S. The average age of the class of 2022 is 28 and students have an average of five years’ work experience, according to the school’s enrollment profile.
Many of the problems at colleges around the U.S. stemmed from gatherings outside of dorms, and Chicago’s incident took place away from the Hyde Park campus.
The Booth School of Business, ranked fourth in the world in the Bloomberg Businessweek 2019-20 ranking, learned within the last week that a large group of full-time MBA students congregated off-campus on Chicago’s North Side, many without wearing face coverings. Some people from that group have since tested positive for Covid-19. In all, more than 100 MBA students will need to quarantine for 14 days, the school said. A spokesman couldn’t immediately provide the number of students who tested positive.
Booth’s downtown and Hyde Park locations will be closed to all students and all classes will move to full remote teaching. No other University of Chicago courses outside of Booth are being moved to a remote format.
“It takes only one incident like this to put many others at risk,” the officials wrote in the letter.
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