MU summer camps canceled due to COVID-19

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The University of Missouri has decided to cancel all 2020 summer camps due to COVID-19.

This decision comes after university officials also moved all in-person summer courses online and Summer Welcome online.

Christian Basi, a spokesperson for MU says the decision was made in light of the health and safety of students and staff.

"We had to make a decision, again, based on the advice from health and public officials to cancel," Basi said.

Both Summer Welcome and summer camps bring new students to the campus in large numbers. Students get to stay in the dorms overnight and see first hand what it is like to be a Mizzou student.

Basi said instead, Summer Welcome, which is essentially freshman orientation, will now be held online.

"It's an opportunity where the students have to really come to campus to really get a good feel for it and since we cannot have them on campus, we're doing everything we can to bring the campus to them," Basi said. "So that means remote, one-on-one, zoom meetings, video chat meetings with an advisor where they can get enrolled in several of their classes because that also happens over summer."

Basi said they were worried that having so many outside visitors on campus could bring potential problems during the pandemic.

"In both situations, you've got a lot of people coming in from a lot of distances a lot of different areas, and all of a sudden being in very close quarters with each other and so first of all, that would create an issue with the 10," Basi said. "We did not feel that it was in the best interest of anyone, including our own staff to continue to have those camps and so we've made that decision to cancel that again for this year, we're really hoping that we're never have to do this again."

While being able to tour the campus online is better than nothing, the University may miss out on prospective students who were interested in walking the historic halls.

"One of the big camps that we've hosted in the past has been the Missouri Scholars Academy, that's an opportunity for our students to be interacting with college professors, and it's a fantastic opportunity for them to see what academic life is going to be like, it's a huge recruiting tool for us," Basi said.

Basi said the university is also preparing for a situation where the university may have to go online in the Fall.

"We're also planning for - what we hope will never happen- and that is to essentially have an online situation for the fall. Now, that's not much different, but our IT people are heavily involved in working on what does that look like. We know we don't want that. But, we would not be good stewards of this university were we not planning to both."

MU does offer a virtual tour of the Columbia campus on its website.