by Chris Quintana

The coronavirus is upending many of the hallmarks of the American university experience. This may be only the beginning of what is to come.

In-person classes were canceled or postponed at more than 100 universities by late afternoon Wednesday, according to a list maintained by Georgetown scholar Bryan Alexander. Across the country, dorms were emptying. Fans were banned from sporting events. Graduation plans were up in the air.

Even campuses that don’t have active cases of the virus shut down their in-person offerings as the virus spreads rapidly across the country.

On Wednesday, Duke University in North Carolina, plus the University of North Carolina; Georgetown and George Washington universities in Washington; the University of Virginia; the University of Michigan; the University of Notre Dame in Indiana; and others announced they would move to online instruction.

Also moving to online courses Wednesday: the state and city universities of New York, which have huge student bodies. SUNY enrolled roughly 415,000 students in fall 2019, and the CUNY system enrolled 275,000 students in fall 2018.

And the state university system of Florida instructed its universities Wednesday to move to remote instruction as soon as possible. As of fall 2018, it enrolled roughly 271,000 students across 12 institutions. Read more via USA Today