Story by: Carlee Loyd

After 11 months of taking classes online, the University of Montevallo is saying goodbye to online learning and saying “Welcome Back” to in-person classes.

Due to the widespread of the COVID-19 virus, UM closed it’s campus and cancelled all in-person classes for the rest of the Spring 2020 semester.

Students at UM thought they were being sent home for a two week long spring break and would return to campus as normal. But those two weeks turned into months.

On March 13, 2020, UM President, Dr. John Stewart III announced that all in-person classes would be moved to online until further notice due to the coronavirus.

On March 3, 2021 Dr. Stewart announced that the university would return to full in-person classes for the Fall 2021 semester.

“We look forward to the fall semester with a deep sense of gratitude for the sacrifices all our students, faculty and staff made to get us here.” said Dr. Stewart.

Many students, including UM student Ashley Matthews, are excited to be back in person like normal.

“I think I’m most excited to get back to seeing people more often and getting to meet more people on campus. I feel like I’ve gotten really disconnected from other people on campus just because there aren’t any social events where you’re getting to meet new people. So, getting to do that would be really fun.” said Matthews.

The beginning of the Fall 2020 was taught online. After being online for the first two weeks of school, some professors started back some in-person classes, but with a restricted number of students.

A lot of professors said it was hard to adjust to online teaching.

Associate Professor of Biology, Dr. Heather Tinsley said, “I had never taught upper level lab sciences online so that was kind of a big adjustment and I really had to rethink what I wanted my students to really learn in the class.”

Some faculty say they plan to use some of the methods they used for online for their in-person classes next semester.

“The way that I have taught this past year, there are some things I learned that I really like. So even when we go back to full face-to-face, I think I’m going to continue doing some of the things I’m already doing.” Dr. Tinsley said.

The university’s COVID-19 task force plans to monitor the virus throughout the coming months and make changes as needed so the university can operate back to normal in the fall.