Notre Dame's president insisted in-person classes were 'worth the risk.' A week into the semester, they're shutting down.


The University of Notre Dame has canceled all its classes amid an outbreak of coronavirus just a week after students returned to class.
In-person classes will be shut down for the next two weeks, and possibly for the rest of the semester, the university's President Rev. John Jenkins announced Tuesday. The abrupt change came after 80 students tested positive for COVID-19, and after Jenkins wrote an op-ed in May insisting it was "worth the risk" to bring them all back in the first place.
Before classes restarted Aug. 10 at the South Bend, Indiana, school, all of its 12,000 students were tested for COVID-19. Just 33 of them tested positive. But as of Monday, another 418 were tested for coronavirus, and 80 tested positive, with many of the new cases linked to an off-campus party. The school kept testing students with coronavirus symptoms, and of the 927 who were tested through the end of Monday, 147 had tested positive.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
That led Jenkins to shut down classes temporarily with the hopes "that we can get back to in-person instruction." But if the outbreak doesn't clear up in two weeks, students will have to go home and learn remotely for the rest of the semester. That possibility will mark a defeat for Jenkins, who insisted in his New York Times op-ed that students would be returning to campus in the fall. "The good of educating students and continuing vital research is very much worth the remaining risk" of the coronavirus pandemic, Jenkins wrote, a belief he stuck by even though the pandemic worsened in Indiana after the article was published.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.
-
6 peaceful homes near small towns
Feature Featuring doors with local topographical maps in Oregon and a 1850s homestead-turned-house in Vermont
-
What would happen to Earth if humans went extinct?
The Explainer Human extinction would potentially give rise to new species and climates
-
The best TV shows based on movies
The Week Recommends A handful of shows avoid derivative storytelling and craft bold narrative expansions
-
Fed chair Powell in Trump's firing line
Speed Read The president considers removing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell
-
Trump trashes supporters over Epstein files
speed read The president lashed out on social media following criticism of his administration's Jeffrey Epstein investigation
-
Judge nixes wiping medical debt from credit checks
Speed Read Medical debt can now be included in credit reports
-
Grijalva wins Democratic special primary for Arizona
Speed Read She will go up against Republican nominee Daniel Butierez to fill the US House seat her father held until his death earlier this year
-
US inflation jumps as Trump tariffs 'bite'
Speed Read Consumer prices are climbing and the inflation rate rose to its highest level in four months
-
SCOTUS greenlights mass DOE firings
Speed Read The Supreme Court will allow the Trump administration to further shrink the Education Department
-
Cuomo announces third-party run for NYC mayor
Speed Read He will go up against progressive Democratic powerhouse Zohran Mamdani and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams
-
Secret Service 'failures' on Trump shooting
Speed Read Two new reports detail security breakdowns that led to attempts on the president's life