BATON ROUGE - LSU says classes will return to campus as planned in August before moving back to an online format in November.

According to a statement released by the university Friday evening, classes will resume on campus Aug. 24. However, there will be no fall break, and all classes will move online after the Thanksgiving holiday, Nov. 25-27.

See the full statement below.

Dear Students, Faculty and Staff,

We’d like to share with you some decisions that have been made about the fall academic calendar. We are still working out many of the details for the fall, but in order to help you plan, we wanted to get this information out to you as quickly as possible. More information about the fall semester will follow in the coming days, so please stay tuned.

Be advised that changes to the academic calendar do not apply to students enrolled in the LSU Online program, or to students in the Paul M. Hebert Law Center and the School of Veterinary Medicine, as those programs operate on separate academic calendars from the rest of the university. Those entities will communicate directly with their students about their academic calendars.

Fall Semester Academic Calendar

Since we can’t predict what the pandemic may look like this winter, we need to take precautions now and address the calendar early so that our employees and students can plan ahead.

-The fall semester and on-campus instruction will begin as planned, on August 24.

-The Labor Day holiday on Monday, September 7, is still in effect.

-Fall Holiday, which was scheduled for October 8-9, will be canceled.

-After the Thanksgiving Holiday, which will be held November 25-27, students will not return to campus. All remaining class meetings after Thanksgiving, as well as final exams, will be held online. By eliminating fall break and not returning to campus after Thanksgiving, we hope to reduce the chances of an outbreak of the virus that could be caused by exposure through travel.

-We are making updates to the fall course offerings to allow for proper social distancing, which may result in room changes to some scheduled courses and/or moving some additional courses online. Students may see some of these changes to their schedules as we make these updates, and LSU will let students know once the updates are complete.
We know these changes to the calendar will bring about other questions, such as when students will have to move out of residence halls, when and how December commencement will be held, and what happens to campus events that were going to be held in December. We will provide answers to all those questions in the coming weeks, but for planning purposes, we wanted to give you this information now.

Please remember that the pandemic is not over yet, and in fact, is now impacting college students at a higher rate than before. You may have heard that several popular night spots near LSU have had to close recently, due to the number of confirmed cases among employees and patrons. Please be vigilant and wear face coverings, and please practice physical distancing and hand washing. We want our fall semester to be as normal as possible, but we all play a role in making that happen. Following CDC and state guidelines now will help us avoid spikes in cases that could negatively affect how we operate this fall.