Babson College Will Be Open This Fall

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Kait Smith Lanthier

Kait Smith Lanthier is the Director, Content Strategy at Babson College and the Managing Editor of Babson Thought & Action. Her writing has appeared in print and online in a variety of outlets including USA Today, Yahoo Shine, YourTango, CosmoGirl, and First for Women magazine. Smith earned her undergraduate degree in journalism and graduate degree in integrated marketing, both from Marist College.

May 12, 2020

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Babson College will be open this fall.

In updates to the community on April 21 and May 6, President Stephen Spinelli Jr. MBA’92, PhD shared how the College will maintain academic continuity come September.

“Our decision making remains focused on two imperatives: the health and safety of our community and maintaining academic continuity for all students,” he wrote. “We are committed to delivering a mix of learning options that provide students with flexibility to ensure the complete Babson experience.”

Those flexible-learning options include preparing for a variety of learning modalities—online, face to face, and a blend of the two. “We plan for students to have the flexibility to move between online and face-to-face options as the situation unfolds,” he wrote.

Regardless of delivery model, all learning will continue this fall, he said.

A Commitment to Academic Continuity

Babson’s approach to maintaining academic continuity has been grounded in five principles: delivering quality, credentialed education without interruption to degree completion; integrating experiential options and cocurricular content; supporting faculty so they may in turn support students; supporting students with flexible learning options and support resources; and continually developing entrepreneurial approaches to solving the challenges presented by this pandemic.

To deliver on these principles, the College launched a comprehensive faculty development program in online instruction. Said Spinelli, “This innovative program is an investment in our faculty as we build a world-class, technology-enabled learning environment that delivers a consistent, high quality of instruction regardless of modality.”

College leadership continues to seek guidance from state officials, and work with external health industry experts, to plan for a return to a physical campus. Planning is underway for measures including sophisticated cleaning strategies, de-densifying decisions in classrooms and residence halls, and other safety and health measures as required.

More information on fall operations can be found in President Spinelli’s community messages from April 21 and May 6.