Yuba College: Shutting Down and Opening Up

Like many other Yuba College students I received an email on November 14th 2020 that the campus would once again be shutting down for two weeks and that most of the students services would become remote. I should have expected a change of events like this because well, it’s 2020-and other unusual years look at this one with confusion. Naturally I was still concerned for students like myself who greatly rely on services provided by Yuba College: the Library, the counseling office, Dusty’s pantry, and even the cafeteria (Java Bean’s absence greatly concerned me because we all need coffee). I took it upon myself to talk to the Dean of Student Success and Institutional effectiveness, Jeremy Brown, on the matter of the shutdown.

When I inquired on Brown’s opinion of the shutdown he explained, “It was a tough decision to shut down, it was made with all of the available information from our local health officer and the goal is really to be able to get us through this next two weeks. We know people want to be able to visit with their families for thanksgiving, they want to have the time without putting any additional risk on our staff, on our students, that was the whole idea behind it.”

Regarding what motivated the difficult decision for Yuba to go remote again he replied, “It was based on the fact that cases have spiked, hospitalizations have spiked, and we want to make sure we are doing everything we can to ensure the health of our students, staff and faculty.” In regards to how Yuba College students are to utilize the same resources, Brown recommended that students use the Mobile app because he is able to communicate with many students on it and in a timely fashion. Brown explained, “For students with limited internet accessibility and no dedicated technology, we are still available to check out WIFI hotspots and chrome books as needed if we know of students who needs it they can work with my office to make sure they get the stuff that they need.”

Brown explained that communication with the students services through phone is not recommended, and that emailing is the easiest way. Brown explained a text message system in which the students could communicate with the services and receive a prompt response is in the works but will not be in place till January. Brown said that come the Spring semester things are most likely to look very remote, and that the campus will be providing the same level of support and in person assistance as the week before the email was sent out. By November 30th (according to Brown) resources should be open with the same health and safety restrictions that were in place prior to the email.

In regards to when Yuba College will look like a semi normal populated campus again, Brown gave the estimate that classes will be 80% online and 20% in person but hopefully things will move in the direction of face to face instruction as the semesters progresses. “We all want to get back to face to face as much as you do, we did not sign up for online schooling or walking around an empty campus. I think that as long as things continue to progress, obviously it depends on when a vaccine is available, I think that we will look to maybe increase that 20% in summer to get us a little more ready hopefully more face to face in Fall but that’s dependent on a lot of things happening, including slowing the spread. That’s another reason that we shut down for these two weeks,” Brown said. Hopefully Yuba College and it’s students, faculty and staff can withstand whatever else 2020 has in store. And for the sake of the students coming in this Fall as freshman, or returning to finish their field of study, I hope that schooling does transition into more face to face because that is the College experience students and faculty deserve to look back on.