{ "id": "2020-03-10-harvard-university-covid-closure", "slug": "harvard-university-covid-closure-2020-03-10", "institution": { "name": "Harvard University", "shortName": "Harvard", "state": "MA", "type": "private-r1", "enrollment": 23000 }, "incident": { "date": "2020-03-10", "type": "covid-19", "cleryCategory": "emergency-notification", "headline": "Undergraduates given five days to vacate campus housing as classes move online", "headlinePublic": "Undergraduates given five days to vacate campus housing as classes move online", "summary": "On March 10, 2020, [Harvard University](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University) President Lawrence Bacow announced that students must vacate campus by March 15 and that instruction would move online. Harvard was among the first elite universities to close, and the announcement [triggered a cascade of closures](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/3/10/harvard-coronavirus-move-out/) at peer institutions within 48 hours.", "outcome": "Students vacated campus housing by March 15. All instruction moved to remote delivery for the remainder of the spring semester. Campus did not fully reopen until Fall 2021.", "resolution": "confirmed-threat" }, "alerts": [ { "sequence": 1, "type": "initial", "timestampApprox": "Midday, Tuesday, March 10, 2020", "channel": "email", "verbatimText": "Dear Members of the Harvard Community,\n\nLike all of you, I have been intently following reports of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and considering the many ways in which its future course might alter my life and the lives of those closest to me. These past few weeks have been a powerful reminder of just how connected we are to one another—and how our choices today determine our options tomorrow.\n\nFortunately, a group of extremely dedicated people has been working literally around the clock to respond to the challenges posed by COVID-19. Our teams are considering every contingency as they undertake their important work on your behalf, and I write today to update you on major near-term changes that will limit exposure to the disease among members of our community:\n\n• We will begin transitioning to virtual instruction for graduate and undergraduate classes. Our goal is to have this transition complete by Monday, March 23, which is the first day of scheduled classes following Spring Recess.\n\n• Students are asked not to return to campus after Spring Recess and to meet academic requirements remotely until further notice. Students who need to remain on campus will also receive instruction remotely and must prepare for severely limited on-campus activities and interactions. All graduate students will transition to remote work wherever possible. Schools will communicate more specific guidance and information, and we encourage everyone to review previous guidance about both international and domestic travel.\n\n• We are transitioning over the course of the next few days to non-essential gatherings of no more than 25 people. Please note this is a change from prior guidance.\n\nThe decision to move to virtual instruction was not made lightly. The goal of these changes is to minimize the need to gather in large groups and spend prolonged time in close proximity with each other in spaces such as classrooms, dining halls, and residential buildings. Our actions are consistent with the recommendations of leading health officials on how to limit the spread of COVID-19 and are also consistent with similar decisions made by a number of our peer institutions. The campus will remain open and operations will continue with appropriate measures to protect the health of the community.\n\nFor regular updates and additional information, please visit this dedicated webpage. Provost Alan Garber, Executive Vice President Katie Lapp, and HUHS Executive Director Giang Nguyen will continue to send you updates by email as needed. You will also continue to receive School- or Unit-specific information from local leadership. If you are a student or faculty member and have specific questions or concerns, I encourage you to be in touch with the contacts identified by your dean. If you are an employee, I encourage you to be in touch with your manager.\n\nDespite our best efforts to bring the University’s resources to bear on this virus, we are still faced with uncertainty – and the considerable unease brought on by uncertainty. It will take time for researchers, a good many of them who are our colleagues, to understand enough about this disease to mount a reliable defense against it. Now more than ever, we must do our utmost to protect those among us who are most vulnerable, whether physically or emotionally, and to treat one another with generosity and respect. Harvard Counseling and Mental Health Services and the Harvard Employee Assistance Program are available to help you manage anxiety and stress. Your mental health is just as important as your physical health.\n\nTo our students, I know it will be difficult to leave your friends and your classrooms. We are doing this not just to protect you but also to protect other members of our community who may be more vulnerable to this disease than you are.\n\nTo our faculty, I recognize that we are asking you midway through the semester to completely rethink how you teach. We do this because we know that you want to avoid putting your students at risk.\n\nTo our staff, I understand that we are expecting you to go above and beyond in your efforts to support our important mission of teaching and scholarship. We do this because we know we can rely on your creativity, flexibility, and judgment through these challenging times.\n\nI am proud to be a member of a community where people put the greater good above their own self-interest. Thank you for your patience and your resilience as we all learn to temper increased distance with deeper care for one another.\n\nWith appreciation,\n\nLarry", "isVerbatimConfirmed": true, "annotations": [ "The five-day deadline (March 10 to March 15) gave students extremely limited time to arrange travel and move out" ], "characterCount": 4558, "sourceUrl": "https://www.harvard.edu/president/news/2020/covid-19-moving-classes-online-other-updates", "sourceDescription": "Harvard President Bacow official community email (verbatim)" }, { "sequence": 2, "type": "update", "timestamp": "2020-03-10T16:00:00-04:00", "timestampApprox": "Afternoon, Tuesday, March 10, 2020", "channel": "email", "verbatimText": "", "isVerbatimConfirmed": false, "annotations": [] } ], "context": "Harvard's March 10 closure announcement was a defining moment of the early pandemic. As one of the most prominent universities in the world, its decision to send students home carried symbolic weight far beyond Cambridge. Within 48 hours, MIT, Princeton, Columbia, and dozens of other institutions [followed suit](https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2020/03/harvard-closes-classes-coronavirus). The speed of the cascade revealed how much institutional decision-making in higher education is driven by peer behavior. For students, the five-day move-out window created chaos: international students scrambled for flights, low-income students faced uncertainty about housing, and seniors realized they might never return. The closure also exposed inequities in who could easily relocate and who could not. The [Harvard Gazette documented](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/03/officials-detail-universitys-move-to-online-learning-to-combat-coronavirus/) the operational details of the transition to remote learning.", "keyFindings": [ "Harvard's closure was among the first at an elite institution and served as a signal to the rest of higher education that COVID-19 required immediate action", "The five-day move-out deadline created significant hardship for international students and those without alternative housing", "Peer institutions followed Harvard's lead within 48 hours, demonstrating the cascade effect in higher education crisis decision-making", "The initial 'temporary' framing of the closure proved dramatically wrong, as campus would not fully reopen for over a year" ], "sources": [ { "title": "COVID-19 – Moving Classes Online, Other Updates (Harvard President)", "url": "https://www.harvard.edu/president/news/2020/covid-19-moving-classes-online-other-updates", "type": "official-archive" }, { "title": "Harvard to Move Classes Online, Asks Students Not to Return After Spring Break", "url": "https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/3/10/harvard-coronavirus-move-out/", "type": "student-newspaper" }, { "title": "Harvard Moves Classes Online, Asks Students Not to Return After Spring Break In Response to Coronavirus (The Harvard Crimson, quoting Bacow and Khurana emails)", "url": "https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/3/11/harvard-coronavirus-classes-cancelled/", "type": "student-newspaper" }, { "title": "Harvard University COVID-19 Campus Closure Announcement", "url": "https://www.harvard.edu/president/news/2020/covid-19-moving-to-virtual-instruction/", "type": "official-archive" } ], "confidence": "high", "tags": [ "covid-19", "pandemic", "campus-closure", "first-movers", "private-r1", "massachusetts", "cascade-effect" ], "dateAdded": "2026-04-04", "lastUpdated": "2026-07-17", "addedBy": "ingestion" }