A student wearing a mask walks on the Morgantown campus of West Virginia University. The school announced Monday classes will go online effective today. (Photo Provided)

MORGANTOWN — In-person classes today will be canceled at West Virginia University in Morgantown, the university announced on Monday.

Online classes will continue as usual, as will university operations. Staff and faculty should report to work as usual, the university said.

Beginning Wednesday, all undergraduate courses in Morgantown, with the exception of those Health Sciences courses with students already engaged in clinical rotation, will move online through Sept. 25. Graduate and professional courses will continue to be offered in person. Additional details regarding this temporary transition will be shared later this afternoon.

Research activities and courses already offered online will remain unchanged. Campus operations in Morgantown will continue as planned, unless supervisors indicate otherwise.

The action is only for the Morgantown campus. All activities on other WVU campuses and in counties other than Monongalia County will continue as planned.

The change in course delivery is in direct response to a recent increase in positive cases in students on the Morgantown campus, as well as concern for the probability of increased cases following several reports of parties held this holiday weekend where groups should have been in quarantine.

“This pause in face-to-face undergraduate instruction will give us time to monitor the steadily climbing cases of COVID-19,” Dr. Jeffrey Coben, associate vice president of health affairs and dean of the School of Public Health, said. “There is increasing evidence that crowded indoor gatherings, such as those that occurred over the weekend, can serve as super-spreader events.”

Monongalia County on Friday went into the red category in the state’s color-coded County Alert Map, the worst of the four classes of green, yellow, orange and red, based on the number of cases of the virus related to population. Counties in the red, of which Monongalia County is the only county in the state in the red, must go to online classes and all extracurriculars including sports can not be held.

WVU placed 29 students on immediate interim suspension on Sunday amid ongoing COVID-19 investigations. Additional sanctions are pending. These actions followed similar announcements Sept. 2 and 3, Aug. 20 and 26.

The university continues to work aggressively to identify others attending these large off-campus gatherings and will respond swiftly to bring charges against those found violating the Student Code of Conduct. WVU is also working with local officials to see what other measures can be implemented for those not following the rules.

Though most undergraduate classes will be delivered remotely through Friday, Sept. 25, the university intends to return to on-campus course delivery on Monday, Sept. 28 if conditions allow. WVU will re-evaluate the public health situation on Wednesday, Sept. 23 and advise whether on-campus learning will resume. If it is deemed safe to return, on-campus learning will begin again on Monday, Sept. 28.

“If any students traveled home for the holiday weekend and have their materials to learn remotely, we ask those students to remain where they are right now,” Dean of Students Corey Farris said. “However, we are strongly advising students who did not travel over the weekend to remain in Morgantown during this time. We have every intention of bringing our students back to campus to resume in-person classes, but that all depends on how our campus community responds in the coming days.”

The university also will temporarily suspend and reduce the number of in-person recreational activities and further limit capacity at events planned on campus. Additionally, more activities will be offered virtually. More information will be shared this afternoon regarding events and activities.

Until further notice, on-campus students should avoid leaving the Morgantown campus area except under emergency circumstances. Off-campus students should not visit campus and are asked to stay in your Morgantown area residence except when necessary.

Meanwhile, WVU reminds students, faculty and staff to complete the daily wellness survey.

The university’s COVID-19 testing dashboard will be updated today at 2 p.m. As announced last week, the dashboard now includes data about self-reported positive test results from outside WVU’s testing system, as well as isolation and quarantine information (on-campus, off-campus, Greek housing and those who have gone home) for the Morgantown campus.

Additional information and COVID-19 updates are available at WVU’s Return to Campus website.