Information on Fall 2020 for Biology Students

This page provides information for Biology students on the Fall 2020 semester and will be updated as necessary.

Online, Blended and In-Person Instruction

UPDATE July 14, 2020: The US government has rescinded its recent guidance on F-1 visas, so all-online instruction is now compatible with maintaining F-1 visa status. The communication below, which was sent by the Biology Department on July 13, contains information on the instructional modes of BIOL-UA courses. This information might still be useful to students preparing for Fall 2020 (but thankfully does not have bearing on visa status):

Dear Biology students,

We hope you and your families are well. We are writing to provide information on in-person Biology instruction in Fall 2020, in light of the recently issued US government guidance on F-1 visas. This information might be useful to students not impacted by this guidance as well.

Information on Albert about the instructional mode of non-lab BIOL-UA courses is currently accurate. Course sections with Instruction Mode listed as Online will be delivered entirely online, whereas those listed as Blended or In-Person will include in-person instruction (but will also accommodate any students who need to take the course remotely). Please check the courses you are registered for, and remember to check both lectures and recitations. Instruction Mode designations on Albert for lab courses will be resolved soon, but our intention is for all lab courses (including At the Bench courses and BIOL-UA 223 MCB Lab) to involve in-person laboratory instruction. (But note BIOL-UA 16 Ecological Field Methods will be entirely online.)

In addition, we have added an upper-level elective (BIOL-UA 26 Developmental Biology), which will be an In-Person course. This course is now open for enrollment on Albert.

Your best source of information on how F-1 visa guidelines impact your plan of study is communications from OGS or from CAS. But please be assured that we in Biology are committed to helping in whatever ways we can, and we will work with all students who need in-person courses to find solutions for them. If you need advice on adjusting your course selections, need to switch into a different course that appears to be closed, or cannot find an in-person course that would work for you, please contact us directly by emailing Professor Siegal .

Best wishes,

Mark Siegal, Director of Undergraduate Studies (until Sept 1) Duncan Smith, Director of Undergraduate Studies (starting Sept 1) Justin Blau, Chair