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UMass Amherst Cuts Back On Students Returning To Campus

An entrance to UMass-Amherst (Deborah Becker/WBUR)
The University of Massachusetts Amherst will require students, faculty, staff, contractors and visitors to wear face-coverings in all indoor public spaces. (Deborah Becker/WBUR)

The University of Massachusetts Amherst is the latest and largest college in the state to drastically amend its reopening plans for the fall in response to a rising number of coronavirus infections across the country.

The state’s flagship state university of Thursday announced that students scheduled to have only online classes in the fall will not be allowed on campus.

Only students who are enrolled in essential face-to-face classes, including laboratories and studios, will be allowed in dormitories, dining halls and other campus facilities.

“Quite simply, when we make a clear-eyed assessment of the public health data and comparable reopening attempts that are playing out across the country, we feel that we have no choice but to make the difficult decision to enact these changes to our fall plan,” Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy said in a statement to the campus community.

UMass Amherst has about 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students.

The school now expects to have about 740 students living on campus, while another 2,400 students who have in-person classes will live off campus, university officials said.

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