Who did you look to for inspiration and why?
Gallo: University leadership was calm, understanding and looking for innovative solutions to handle the tasks at hand. They were thinking with a lens to ensure student safety with minimal disruption, and that helped the rest of us focus, too.
Hamill: Dr. Katrina Carter-Tellison, vice president for academic affairs, and Mike Petroski, academic dean, made bold decisions with confidence and compassion. They partnered well with my team to ensure we delivered the same engaging educational experience, whether on campus, virtually, in 16 weeks or four weeks.
I also looked to Gareth Fowles, vice president for enrollment management. He challenged our team to ensure that virtual campus visits could still make a student get that “I can see myself here” feeling. We held just under 150 virtual programs in eight months with 6,000 attendees.
What do you believe was the single most significant reason Lynn was able to keep students on track?
Gallo: The teamwork in student affairs and across the university. The leaders and working groups were student-centric. We wanted to ensure that we had considered and were doing whatever we could to help students have the best experience possible.
Hamill: The faculty. With the block schedule format, faculty act swiftly to connect with the student success team if a student falls off track. Academic alerts have more than doubled, which means we’re intervening earlier. Additionally, we see early indicators of better attendance and academic performance this fall, which starts with our faculty.
How would you describe the types of help that you and your team provided?
Hamill: We intervene when professors raise academic alerts on their students. We held virtual programs during the pandemic to help motivate students and provide tips and tricks for learning remotely. We try to make it easier for them to access resources wherever they are. And we communicate with parents; sometimes they need someone to listen, too.
Gallo: We often played a listening role or offered advice and reassurance. In the Dean’s Office and in Housing and Residence Life, we helped students with travel plans, and in some cases, secured additional financial assistance or made arrangements to help them remain local or stay on campus while their borders were closed.
Our Counseling Center sought certifications in telemental health and began to offer these services; our Center for Student Involvement transitioned programs to virtual formats.
Our leadership and our Health Center spent the summer working on ways to operate safely for the 2020–21 academic year. We created isolation spaces on campus and partnered with a local hotel if students are interested in isolating off campus. In both instances, we developed a plan to offer specific services. We also collaborated with CVS Health on the testing site and worked-out parameters for students’ return. Finally, we reimagined programming operations and physical campus space operations to ensure community safety and more.
What would you like to see “return”?
Hamill: Being able to hug people or even shake their hands. Lynn is such a family-oriented place, and human connection is just part of who we are.
Gallo: We adjusted our programs to become pandemic-friendly yet still fun and engaging. So, we look forward to seeing the return of face-to-face programming, large-scale events and traditions.
"caring" - Google News
October 23, 2020 at 11:00AM
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Caring for our community and each other - Lynn University
"caring" - Google News
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