Suffolk University will have an extended winter break and will go without a spring break next semester due to the COVID-19 pandemic, officials announced Friday. 

All classes for the Spring 2021 semester will start on Monday, Jan. 25 — one week later than originally planned, Suffolk President Marisa Kelly said in a statement sent to community members’ emails. 

The university expects to hold both on-campus and online classes come the start of the spring semester, Kelly said.

“However, based on currently available information, the same increased risks of COVID-19 transmission from students traveling away from and returning to campus (as there is now) will remain in the spring,” she wrote in the statement. 

Students who live in on-campus housing will be able to move back into their rooms starting on Jan. 17. These students “must follow quarantine and testing requirements that will be communicated to residence students separately from this email,” she wrote. 

Spring break, which was supposed to run through the week of March 15, was also canceled in light of heightened travel risks during the pandemic. 

The move comes after the university announced last week that all in-person classes will be remote after Thanksgiving break through the end of the fall semester. 

“We are hopeful, as are so many across the nation and the globe, that a vaccine for COVID-19 will be forthcoming, and that spring semester activities, especially in late spring, may reflect this,” Kelly said.

“But that is by no means certain, and as such, we are proactively adjusting the calendar to help protect the health of all members of our community and the broader public while allowing students to plan accordingly,” she said. 

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