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Online Learning Hurdles

Lori Walsh: The Board of Regions has directed all public universities in the state to transfer to online learning in an effort to flatten the curve of the coronavirus pandemic in South Dakota. Jim Moran is Provost Vice President for Academic Affairs at Dakota State University and he's joining us now for a look at how that transition is being handled at Dakota State. Jim Moran, thanks for being here. We appreciate your time.

Jim Moran: Well, thank you and good morning. I'm certainly pleased to talk about what we're doing and it certainly has been a challenge, but we can continually look for our innovative ways to operate the university. The university, we're still open. And still maintain the quality of instruction that we really strive to do.

I think at Dakota State we're fortunate that our faculty are so committed to students and to their learning and both students and faculty are fairly tech savvy, partly because of our laptop program, because of the nature of what we do. And I think at one level that makes it easier for us. At the same level, there are challenges that each of us face because online learning is a different modality and the way students learn and the way we present material is very different. So, it's one of those things that I think is actually helping bring us together in some ways by recognizing that it's important for us to focus on. Making sure that these students are still on track to graduate and still get the content and information to position themselves for what we always define as career and life success.

Lori Walsh: How long has this transition been underway? Because everybody's at a different stage with where they were at in spring break for example, and how quickly they were able to transition, especially with the laptop program where every student already has something set up. So, tell me how long this has been going on for you and what sort of stage of online learning transitioning are you in right now?

Jim Moran: Well, right now we're fully online for all of our courses and had to do a number of different ways. Some of that is on our traditional online program. Many of those are self paced by students. For others, our courses, we're meeting those at the same time that they were scheduled. Had a conversation with one of our programs this morning. But that is done remotely through mechanisms by which students get on their computer, faculty's on their computer, and they can see each other and interact in that real time.

As this issue of the COVID-19 came up and first that decision to extend spring break for the week and then go online for two weeks. At that time we began preparation. We began preparation both for how we might need to move courses online for the rest of the semester and again, really compliment our faculty that saw some of that coming and went to work right away.

At the same time we looked at how, as a university, we're operating in terms of making sure that we have preregistration coming up for summer and fall, and advising students, and how we're going to look at providing some of the support for students in terms of tutoring as well. Obviously now the whole process of students leaving campus and these sorts of things creates, for an individual, a little more disruption. We've got students who are working and some of that's disrupted in terms of those. But I think we saw very quickly that we might need to be prepared for this, primary focus being health and safety of our faculty, staff, as well as our students.

And so we began fairly early and I think that put us in a position to, as the decision was made this week, to going fully online. We are seeing that most of our courses are in good shape. There are some difficulties. We have some, what I would say high powered computer labs that have unique software on them. Students don't have access to that anymore. So, our IT program had to go to work and worked with some of the software vendors to enable us to have extended licenses for those students to be able to put those on their laptops on their home computer for the rest of the semester so they could do that high end work from home instead of in our computer labs.

Some of the courses that are a little more hands on, the science labs, the art courses, those become a little more difficult. But again, I think faculty have been innovative and tried to see how they can cope with that.

Lori Walsh: Tell me a little bit about, we mentioned the laptop program addressing issues of equity, but clearly there are students who who who don't have a good home to go to or they're an international student or they're far away and maybe they can't get to their home, they have immunocompromised people at home.

Jim Moran: We have some students that will still be on campus and those will be some of the very international students that some cases can't go home because of the the flights. Some students have nowhere else to go and so we will have a group of students who are on campus. We are also worried about some students that live in some of the remote areas where their internet is not good. Again, the local library is closed and other resources that they might've been able to use are closed.

Those are students that we we do have some concerns about and we'll have to work with those students on an individual basis to see what we can do, whether we are mailing assignments back and forth or those sorts of things that we might be able to do. We've also had students whose internships have been disrupted, not just here but also for summer, and those are things that we're trying to work through on an individual basis.

We've got another group of students who we're worried about and those are students for whom we've made accommodations because they have a disability in some form or another, that the way we've operated on campus has been to accommodate some of what they need. How we flip those on to online are things that we're working through. Contacting all of those students on an individual basis to make sure that we keep them on track for graduation as well.

So, there are all those different kinds of things that come up that we we deal with and we're aware of. We don't have the solutions to all of them right now, but I think again, our faculty are going to be very accommodating to individual student needs and recognize that our main focus is to make sure the students stay on track to complete their programs, and at pain, that's special educational experience that is part of Dakota State.

Lori Walsh: Is there a plan to go to pass/fail at all? Or are we still doing grades and testing?

Jim Moran: Those are things that are being talked about at the system level and no decisions have been made on that as yet.

Lori Walsh: How are you handling admissions right now? Because this is a time when a lot of students are making plans for the fall. A lot of high school seniors.

Jim Moran: You know, exactly. And not only that, it's trying to keep that interaction with our existing students and looking at admissions. So, we've got a mechanism to try to do some interactive things online for students, trying to get some videos put together so students can experience the campus even though they may not be on the campus. That is a challenge. That's a challenge, of course, that every universities is dealing with.

We will be putting together a task force to look at how we can cope with all of these situations that are different. It's a different experience and how we interact with those potential students and existing students, to keep them on board, is part of what our challenge is. We're meeting consistently at the university. We have a few staff that are working on campus and other staff that are working remotely and fortunately most of our staff are able to continue a lot of their activities remotely. And admissions is one of those that will be interacting with students in a different fashion. Those are things that we deal with.

Lori Walsh: If students had already applied, will they get those admissions letters? Are these letters still going out in the spring?

Jim Moran: Yes. We'll still be getting all of those admissions letters out, all of those interactions with students. There are some issues that we're going to have in terms of ACT exams and these sorts of things. But there are ways that we're going to cope with that.

And so these are things that are issues for the institution we're all facing across the state. But yes, students will get their admissions letters, we'll be processing transcripts for students that are transfer students and all of those types of things to make sure that as a university we're operating as a university, and all those types of things that we need to do to enable students to Still achieve their dreams in terms of what they want.

And we'll be probably interacting with students much more on an individual basis to make sure that they understand that we're still there for them. And I think that's important. One of the things our faculty are going to miss most is that life of a campus and that interaction, that one on one interaction that that makes a faculty role so lively and keeps us in the role, that interaction with students is something that gives us life as well as helping the students. And we're trying to transition that same kind of thing to being online and to working with those students in a different way, but still thinking about those students as being part of Dakota State and that experience that we can give you as a student and the college experience. So, that's important for us.

Lori Walsh: There's a real sense of grief. As you do all this scrambling and as you try to respond and be ahead of and kids who can't get back, to get their stuff, how does it get packed, how do you do that safely? All this decision making process, go, go, hurry, rush, hustle, solve, communicate, communicate, communicate.

There's also this heaviness of grief for professors and students, especially those who are getting ready to graduate, who now have that rite of passage interrupted. Can you speak a little bit to how, as a university, you just sort of see those moments of people acknowledging that as they move forward and standing in that space together?

Jim Moran: Yes. I think that is really one of the things that we've talk about pretty much on a constant basis. Conversation this morning. And we recognize that especially for even some of our students that were already online, and we have a fair amount of students that were already fully online, but their lives have been disrupted. They may now have children at home that they are now coping with. They may have lost a job or a reduction of incomes. And all of this life experience that some of those students ...

We are reaching out to those students and saying, "Yes, we understand and what can we do to be there for you?" And again, I think even our faculty members are having some of those other experiences that change their lives very much. Besides just what they're doing on teaching. But they, again, may have their situation in terms of their home situation changed very much and there is that sense of ... I don't know so much as grief, but disruption and how am I coping with that disruption?

And so we're trying to reach out to students on an individual basis and you know in our communications to say, "We recognize that your life has been disrupted and we're doing the best we can. We're all in this together and the primary focus is, again, on making sure that we are consistent with the guidelines for preserving health and safety." Because if we don't get through that, none of us get that on the other end.

But we're really focused on, especially those graduating seniors, to make sure whether that be undergraduates or graduate students, we've got that issue as well, to making sure that we stay on track to make sure that they can move to that next stage. That celebration of commencement is going to be postponed and how we do that is still up in the air a little bit. But we want to make sure that, in some ways, that student can still celebrate and move on to that next stage of their life.

Lori Walsh: Tell me a little bit about how that process of moving out is going to be handled. For one thing, some of them, they share rooms for one thing. Seniors are going to want to say goodbye to each other and hug or have parties or whatnot. How are you handling the communication?

Jim Moran: We're saying, by the way, we can't have parties. We are very serious about focusing on the issues around health and safety and limiting any kind of the issues around community contagion. And so, what we have done for our students is we have given students who are within driving distance, typically a schedule. If you live at on this floor of this residence hall, here's your time to come gather your things. We also know that there are students that won't be able to do that. And so we're dealing with those students on an individual basis of, "If you're scheduled to come and you can't come, we're making an adjustment for that."

But one of the things we're paying attention to is one, we do not want all the students to come at one time because that is, from a health and safety perspective, something we're trying to avoid. So, those are kind of processes that we have. At the same time, we're going to have some students who are on campus here. We're going to be relocating them to a single residence hall so we can again provide those services to them. We're going to still have dining facilities available for them because they use our residence halls as their primary residence.

Lori Walsh: Jim Moran, I'm going to go ahead and let you go. We have Dr. Dan Hidaman on the line. We're going to do a healthcare update here in just a moment, but I wanted to say thank you so much for your time and for all your faculty and staff and students. We wish you the best. Stay healthy please.

Jim Moran: That we will and thank you for the opportunity and again, it's one of these things that has helped us all come together for the benefit of the state and benefit of our students and thanks for the opportunity and good luck to you.