LAUSR

The College of Dentistry’s DMD program must meet national standards for accreditation and its academic programming is structured to meet these standards. The COVID-19 pandemic required the college to rethink its academic schedule and devise an approach that simultaneously maintained academic programming requirements and minimized COVID-19-related risks from inperson activities for students and instructors. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the college traditionally provided two daily clinic and/or preclinic sessions in the morning (9–11:30 AM) and in the afternoon (1:30–4:30 PM), and didactic lectures were typically taught in-person for about 1 h before, in between, and/or after those sessions. Students also had access to 1 h lunch break. This schedule required students to spend a large portion of their day inperson at the college. In devising the new schedule, various constraints needed to be considered, including the specific technical requirements students needed to accomplish during preclinical/clinical activities, restricted access to college spaces for students before/after hands-on activities due to COVID-19, as well as logistical constraints to avoid students commuting to campus multiple times a day (eliminating unnecessary stress from traffic, parking, or bus delay).