Universities make it through first semester

The country's universities — including local institutions Heidelberg and Tiffin University — have concluded their first semesters overcoming challenges moving forward into the second semester.Both Heidelberg and TU began planning in the summer on strategies to be able to allow students and staff back on campus in the fall.Students from both institutions were given the option to either take fall semester classes remotely or in-person and hybrid models. Heidelberg University PHOTO COURTESY OF HEIDELBERG UNIVERSITY "This certainly has not been the college experience that our students expected," Rob Huntington, Heidelberg president, said. "We have found creative ways to keep everyone engaged while strictly adhering to all health and safety protocols."The fall semester was difficult for all faculty and staff, he said."We were limited in our regular contact with each other, our students and outside guests"Fall events, such as The Patricia Adams Lecture Series and athletic activities had to be canceled.According to Bryan Smith, interim vice president of Academic Affairs and Provost at Heidelberg, faculty have taken up the challenge of choosing what was best for their pedagogy, their subject and their own skill sets."While many have found the online portion of teaching to be more time consuming than they necessarily anticipated, they have risen to the challenge and have been able to connect with students in new and different ways this semester," Smith said. "Faculty have remained committed to providing the best possible education for Heidelberg students, given the limitations of the current circumstances."Smith said some challenges faculty faced were having to deliver courses to residential students while simultaneously to remote learners.When an uptick in COVID-19 cases hit, faculty and students were forced to go fully remote for over two weeks, Smith said."There is such a thing as Zoom fatigue, learning and applying technology simultaneously, engaging students in the virtual classroom, clear lines of communication to keep all students on the same page," Smith said.Quality internet access for students and managing classes with students who were ill, who had ill family members and friends and students who have lost loved ones were other challenges for students and faculty members that faced many over the last few months."In general, we were likely more attuned to student mental health this semester, which also could become hard on faculty mental health as well," Smith said.According to Smith, there were positive outcomes to the fall semester that will help the university frame how they conduct the spring semester.Students at Heidelberg had to start the semester with a one-week quarantine as they awaited results of a mandatory COVID-19 test, Chris Abrams, dean of Student Affairs at Heidelberg said. Everyone was learning remotely in their campus residences or at home.Huntington said the university made the decision to conduct mass testing of the entire campus community prior to the start of the fall semester. They continued surveying those on campus and provided additional testing by the Ohio National Guard twice on campus, he said."So when in-person classes started (in the fall), everyone was ready to go," Abrams said. "They were really happy to see their professors and classmates and resume their college experience - although very different on so many levels."With observing the strict health and safety guidelines, students were able to participate in extra-curricular activities and Heidelberg was able to have a few in-person events, which mainly took place outdoors when possible.Abrams said Heidelberg closely monitored student mental health with the aid of offering telehealth and telecounseling services. He said Heidelberg received funding from the Ohio College Initiatives Grant through the CARES Act to be able to continue providing these services to students. The university is also offering BergCare while students are on winter break.Huntington said Heidelberg made the decision to end in-person instruction on Nov. 20, with students completing the final two weeks at home."With positive test results come contact tracing, that this stretched our limited staff at times," Huntington said. "Students who tested positive or were identified as close contacts and were isolated and quarantined experience unexpected feelings of isolation."Huntington said over the course of the fall semester, it has been inspiring to witness the hard work by so many across campus. For example, Parkhurst Dining delivered meals to students who were quarantined or in isolation.Heidelberg alumni also reached out to help provide support to students as well, Huntington said.Smith and Abrams said students will again be provided the option of how their courses are delivered for the spring semester. They can decide to have courses entirely remotely, in-person on campus or through a hybrid model.Heidelberg will also be offering a Residential Learning Tuition Plan and a Remote Learning Tuition Plan for students.In the spring, the university plans to again require students to get a COVID-19 test before returning to campus on Jan. 18, 2021. Once tested the university will continue active surveillance testing during the semester.Like many universities and colleges, they will eliminate breaks to reduce travel by students, staff and faculty and they will continue to reduce classroom capacity.Heidelberg employees have also been working from home as much as possible and will continue to do so into the spring semester. Tiffin University PHOTO COURTESY OF TIFFIN UNIVERSITY "We learned a lot, especially right at the start of the semester," Lillian Schumacher, president of TU said. "It took some time for us to get the students to take masking and social distancing seriously."At the beginning of the summer, Schumacher said when the university began its scenario planning, people were going to "show their true colors during adversity.""What we saw was a campus that really came together — from the administration through the faculty, staff and students — everyone came together," Schumacher said. "We all decided to make it a goal to get through this - and everyone embraced that goal."TU's COVID-19 Institutional Response Team developed the Dragon Plan for fall. This plan will continue with a few adjustments for the spring semester, which begins with classes starting remotely Jan. 17, 2021, and in a hybrid model on Feb. 1, 2021.Once adjusting, students were rarely seen walking around campus without masks, Schumacher said."Our students have been exceptional and we are in awe of how they are taking this in stride, knowing this has been really difficult for everyone," she said.Like Heidelberg, one of TU's challenges was getting the COVID-19 tests."When our students returned in the fall, we struggled to find adequate tests and tests are expensive, but once we got through this hurdle, things went much smoother," Schumacher said.Schumacher said their communication with students will stay consistent while on winter brick."We are expecting that January might result in high exposure times since the start of the pandemic," she said. "We hope we are on the downhill side of the pandemic, but we are planning for worst-case scenarios."Schumacher said the university will continue to be diligent in what they are doing — making sure students, faculty and staff are masked and abiding by the Dragon Pledge."We plan to bring students and employees back and start the entire COVID-19 response process again," Schumacher said. "We have learned that students need to be back and need to be part of their collegiate life, even if it is not completely normal.""I was so impressed with how everyone came together," Lonny Allen, vice president of athletics at TU and head of the COVID-19 response, said. "We were still trying to figure out our process when students first came back — all of us, administrators to faculty and staff. Once we did, we got our message across — of being safe. And all of Dragon nation did a great job of being disciplined and caring for everyone else." Schumacher wanted to thank Allen for leading the team.