TIFFIN, Ohio — At the college level, person-to-person classes across Ohio have been suspended, and lessons have been moved online.
Classrooms at Tiffin University sat empty Wednesday, less than 24 hours after university administrators made the decision to hold all classes online for the rest of the month.
Tiffin University Provost Peter Holbrooke said the decision came following Governor Dewine's directions, and knowing that this week students were returning from their spring break.
"Because our students do travel, our athletic teams travel not only within the state of Ohio, but outside of the state of Ohio. But we do have faculty and staff and students who would go away on Spring Break," said Holbrooke.
Almost all of TU's teachers are familiar with their online class portal, as many courses already have an online shell.
It was a quick days work for faculty and the I.T. staff transferred the majority of the course work online rather efficiently.
Now they are working to figure out a solution for classes that need lab work or hands on instructions.
Because most of the server space used for the online portal is done through cloud services, there is no worry of overloading their systems with everything now online.
"But in terms of our main online servers, our service provider has already indicated that we should have no problems. They're well ready to handle the load from Tiffin University and from across the country," said Dan Clark, vice provost for online and extended learning for TU.
Now the Tiffin University administration will continue to evaluate the coronavirus outbreak to decide if they need to continue these online only classes into the spring.