April 17 marks the end of Loyalist College’s 2020 winter semester, but things have been quite different for students since classes were moved online five weeks ago due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Quinte News spoke with Loyalist President and CEO Dr. Ann Marie Vaughan about how they handled the rapid campus closure and shift in program delivery, as well as what plans are being made moving forward.
QN: How have things been going at the college since the decision was made to shut down campus and move to other types of program delivery?
AV: The Loyalist faculty and staff have been exceptional. Within a week our faculty were able to move classes online and offer alternative delivery methods for students who need accommodations, with many of our staff supporting faculty. The efforts have been absolutely remarkable.
QN: How has this impacted students who had to move their courses online, does it seem like everyone will progress, either to next year, or graduation?
AV: We’re certainly working with students to make sure we provide every accommodation and we know our faculty are really there to support them. This was a real change for our students and our faculty, with the way we deliver programs at Loyalist College. It’s a learning curve for some. Some migrated quite well, but we’re here to support students and we’ve advised them about accommodations we can make to help them get through this semester.
QN: What kind of impact will this have on events like graduation? Have you started looking that far ahead yet?
AV: Unfortunately, like 90% of colleges and universities in Canada who have decided to postpone or cancel their convocations, we’ve chosen to postpone our June ceremony. But we realize what an important moment that is for our graduates, their families and the college community. Obviously we’re waiting on bigger decisions around social distancing and getting back to some form of normalcy, which will dictate our decisions on when we will hold it, but we do want to give our students that moment and we will certainly find a way for them to have that.
QN: How far ahead is the college able to look as far as planning for next year with something like this going on? Are you in the same situation as most other people in not being able to make many plans moving forward?
AV: We’re looking at various plans depending on various situations. One of the challenges is that many of the decisions are outside of our control, but what we can be is well planned. The longer this goes on with emergency measures we’ll make certain plans around that. One of the things we’ve done right now is delay the start of the spring semester until May 19 and starting the semester in alternative delivery. It’s our hope that at some point throughout the summer we’ll be back to onsite delivery, but if we’re not, we’re making allowances for that as well. So, we’re moving with various options and the best thing for the college is to be planned for numerous options that we can implement depending on decisions by the province, or the Federal Government and we will adapt and change as needed to support our students.
QN: There was a story in a national news outlet about enrolment of international students dropping because of travel restrictions and those negative financial impacts. Loyalist has done a lot of work in recent years recruiting international students, so is there any thought at this point about how that may affect things moving forward?
AV: We’re clearly looking at various options. One of the things for the spring is we’re not at as much risk because the new students we have starting, the majority of them are already in Ontario, so they’re able to start their studies that way. We’re working with the Federal Government because they have moved to allow international students to start their programs online, until such a point they’re able to move to Canada, so that’s one option that exists for us. The fall will have a bigger impact on Loyalist. It will have a considerable impact if we have no new international students, or any drop in domestic students. So we’re really engaged right now in keeping in touch with domestic students to make sure they know we’re here for them and we’ll do anything we can to ease them into post-secondary in the fall, as well as thinking about options for our international students who seek entry to Canada. It’s also not just matters of what happens in Canada that impact what we do in the fall, it’s also impacted by other countries around the world where our students are coming from and what the conditions are there as well.
QN: We also wanted to shed some light on some of the things that Loyalist staff, students and faculty are doing during these times to step up and help the community. What does that say about the college community as a whole?
AV: At Loyalist our first value is about caring and it really speaks to what Loyalist College is. It’s right in the DNA of the institution and in a moment like this it really shines. I think about the examples of students who have gone right to graduation and are now working, or we have our own faculty and staff who are working on the front lines as paramedics or personal support workers, or nurses, or two faculty members (Jeremy and Suzanne Braithwaite) that have designed and produced 4,000 face shields in their house in a week. When I think about all of those efforts it just reminds me what an amazing place Loyalist College is and in what an amazing community we’re located. It speaks to the people, it speaks to the place, it speaks to who the students are and it’s absolutely inspiring. And in moments like this that are so uncertain and troubled, when you see moments of such kindness, it just says something very special about this place. I’m just inspired by the people I work with every day and these past five weeks, it’s been just amazing.
QN: Do you have any messages for the community, or the college population as we continue to work through this?
AV: First of all I want to congratulate all of our students who made it to today, the last day of the winter semester, I’m sure there were times they never thought they’d make it here and my sincere thanks to the faculty, staff and community that have helped them get to this point. We have students who are living in hotels and we have local restaurants that are providing meals, it’s just absolutely been a total community effort and we couldn’t do it without them. We will stick with our students and employees and do everything we can to mitigate any kind of job loss, or reductions, or uncertainty that our community will face during this time. We’re here with them and we want to truly thank the community and everyone at Loyalist College that has stepped up and done everything possible to get students to this day. Congratulations as well to our graduates who are in their final semester. I hope they get a chance to celebrate this moment, which is so well deserved and in this moment of uncertainty I really hope they get that opportunity, because they’re certainly shining to us.
