Summer semester at the University of Georgia will be online, with "limited exceptions," UGA President Jere Morehead announced Thursday.

Courses offered during Maymester, the short UGA term between spring and summer terms, will also be online, he said.

The decision was not Morehead’s but a University System of Georgia order to all 26 of Georgia’s public colleges and universities, including locally the University of North Georgia, which has a campus in Watkinsville.

"According to USG Chancellor Steve Wrigley, all institutions will return to normal operations for Fall Semester, assuming health conditions permit," Morehead wrote in a message to the university community. "For the immediate future, however, we are to continue our current telework and flexible work strategies to minimize the number of individuals who remain on campus to maintain operations and support remote instruction."

Many UGA summer courses are already offered online and won’t require faculty to make a sudden transition.

After summer enrollment began dropping several years ago, UGA began moving many of its high-demand core courses to an online format in summer school as a strategy to help students move more quickly toward graduation.

Many graduate courses and programs in education are offered online as well.

Nearly 18,000 students enrolled in UGA summer courses last summer, a little less than half UGA’s typical fall semester enrollment