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Faculty Response Boyd at RCTC uses one word to describe the faculty’s response to the pandemic’s impact on the learning environment, “Incredible.” “Their willingness to be flexible and compassionate during what can only be described as a stressful time was beyond what any president could hope for,” Boyd says. “When the pandemic first hit Minnesota, our faculty and the academic affairs leadership worked together to convert 93% of our face-to-face instruction to online in a short period.” Some faculty had to learn new technologies with little time for training. Others had to change how they taught to ensure students would continue to learn the subject matters, even if it was through an unfamiliar format. “And our staff worked just as diligently to ensure the support services were also there for our students, whether that meant helping them determine their class schedules over a virtual meeting or delivering food to students at their homes,” Boyd says. In the early days of the pandemic, the faculty at Mayo Clinic School of Health Sciences also worked tirelessly to make sure that the things they were used to doing in person were adapted to the virtual world. “When a lot of employees were sent home and patient appointments were decreased to prepare for the surges of patients with COVID-19, the faculty were at their busiest figuring out how to keep the education programs going, how to meet the learning objectives in new ways, and how to keep our students on-track for graduation and
Minnesota – Rochester is not surprised that from the first moment of the move to remote learning in March 2020, UMR faculty have been extraordinary, even heroic, in their efforts to support their students. “What an incredible challenge to dramatically revise active learning lesson plans for multiple scenarios and stages of this unpredictable pandemic – unsure if a particular class session would be delivered in-person, remotely, or hybrid,” Carrell says. “Chemistry labs and community engagement courses held special challenges – and our creative faculty found ways to adjust - with at-home lab kits and new ways of engaging with community organizations that were also impacted by the pandemic. One team of faculty designed a new curricular sequence focused on solving problems in the healthcare industry, reporting that the design process fueled their energy in an otherwise difficult time.” Lessons Learned Gangeness stresses that through this pandemic we have learned that we can leave the classroom and move online without bringing the education process to a halt. “As a system, higher education was initially unprepared to make this transition. However, we succeeded through local efforts. Winona State instructors were able to pivot quickly because of the support received prior to and during the
During the pandemic, faculty at the Mayo Clinic College of Science and Medicine worked to make sure that in-person courses were well adapted for the virtual world.
employment,” Tynsky says. “I hold their efforts in the same high esteem as those of the heroic men and women who cared for patients throughout the darkest days of the pandemic.” Like its counterparts, University of Minnesota – Rochester is a very student-focused campus. As such, Dr. Lori Carrell, Chancellor at University of
Photo Credit: Mayo Clinic
Advantage Magazine | 7
May 2022
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