Clemson University’s Rotational Attendance Plan During COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic forced universities to upend their class scheduling. At Clemson University, the administration implemented hybrid schedules for fall 2020, in which students attend classes partly online and partly in person. To limit exposures of COVID-19 in the classroom, we propose two rotational attendance models (the three-cohort model and the once-a-week model) that aim to allow in-person classroom time and minimize exposure between students. In a baseline strategy, students would interact with an average of 84 students per week and attend class in person 2.6 days a week. By contrast, the three-cohort model and once-a-week model achieve about 57 and 83 student interactions per week and 1.6 and 1.9 in-person student attendance days a week, respectively. Although these figures of merit may imply that the three-cohort model is preferable, it achieves its results by forcing about 1,600 of the 21,000 students who want to attend courses in person to participate online instead and forcing courses that meet twice a week to be attended twice in a three-week rotation. Considering the tradeoffs between the figures of merit related to student interaction and anticipated implementation challenges, Clemson University implemented the once-a-week model for fall 2020 and spring 2021.