What Anoka-Ramsey Community College will look like in relation to COVID-19 next semester is still unknown. Even if COVID-19 cases drastically decrease that does not mean the campus will fully open up.   

Students will be back on campus when the health department, the governor’s office, and the Minnesota State system office decide it’s safe to be back. 

“I was really excited about the vaccine roll out thinking, ‘Oh fall’s going to be great. Everybody is going to be vaccinated, we’re going to go back to normal,’” Kent Hanson, the president of Anoka-Ramsey and Anoka Technical College, said. “I don’t think it’s going to be fall. More probably toward the spring.”  

An email went out to the staff in early March with updated guidelines for the fall semester from Vice President of Academics and Student Affairs Steve Crittenden. The Minnesota Department of Health is predicting people will still need to be three feet apart with masks on in classrooms in the fall. This will be easier to accommodate than the previously guideline of six feet apart. 

For now, instructors are asked to keep as many of their classes online as possible, if needed classes will become hybrid. Online classes are likely to be common after the pandemic subsides. 

 “Before COVID we had about 25 percent [of our] classes online. I could see a future where we have probably around 30 to 35 percent of our classes online,” Hanson said.  “We still know the on–campus experience is important. We don’t want to get rid of it.” 

Currently there is only one entrance available on the Coon Rapids campus. Before accessing the building, students, faculty and staff fill out an electronic form noting their current health and sign in with a campus security officer.  

The Coon Rapids campus fitness center reopened in February with restrictions. The campus community received an email with hours of operation, rules and restrictions for its use, and a link to the health screening that visitors fill out before entering the campus. 

“We’ve reopened with confidence, where in the fall we certainly could not have done that,” Cliff Anderson who is the director of public safety said. “I think that one reopening lends itself to others.” 

“I can’t wait to get back to campus, to have more normal life, because it’s so beautiful at Anoka-Ramsey,” Hanson said.