Texas Tech’s Response to COVID-19 for the Spring 2022 Semester
On Wednesday, January 5th, Texas Tech University provided an update concerning how they would be responding to COVID-19 for the Spring 2022 semester.
The memorandum, released by Texas Tech President Dr. Lawrence Schovanec and Senior Vice President and Provost Dr. Ron Hendrick, emphasized that they would provide "greater flexibility" in their response to COVID-19.
One of the ways TTU plans to demonstrating this greater flexibility is through College Deans, in consultation with Chairs, being authorized to make temporary changes in course modalities in response to local case criteria. These criteria include case prevalence and trajectories in individual course sections. Requests for a temporary change in course modality for up to 3 weeks can be submitted by instructors to department chairs.
In the weeks leading up to 2022, a rapid increase in COVID-19 cases was observed in Lubbock, mostly driven by the Omicron variant. Texas Tech expects the increase in positive cases to continue throughout at least mid-January.
Despite this, students will still be welcomed back on campus beginning Wednesday, January 12th. Vaccinations and mask wearing indoors is still what Texas Tech believes to be the best measures when it comes to preventing the spread of COVID-19.
On-campus COVID-19 testing locations also re-opened on Tuesday, January 4th. Along with this, a vaccination clinic hosted by United Supermarkets will take place January 7th, and starting on January 4th, vaccination clinics will be hosted by TDEM on Fridays. These testing sites are open to all students, faculty and staff.