Sheldon, Iowa — Things are slowly inching back toward normal at Northwest Iowa Community College in Sheldon.
NCC Vice President for Student and Academic Services, Dr. John Hartog tells us about it.
(as said:) “This summer, beginning on May 20th, we began offering some face-to-face courses. We came to the conclusion because we are an educational institution and we are vital to the educational needs and for the economy of northwest Iowa that if at all possible, we should try to reopen some face-to-face courses. So the way that we went about this was we realized that all of the general education or liberal arts courses could be offered online so we’re continuing to offer those only online and then any other kinds of programs that we could offer online with good quality we chose to do that also. Examples there would be nursing is a hundred percent online this summer. They’re doing all their book learning this summer. The industrial commercial wiring for example is also all online.”
But, says Hartog, there are some classes that meet in the summer that need face-to-face, hands-on instruction.
(as said) “So examples of those would be power line, our auto and diesel programs, welding, the heavy equipment program, and as I think about it the rad (radiation) tech with some of its skills assessment and the certified nursing assistants and so forth. They all need to be able to demonstrate their acquisition of skills in a face-to-face setting. So we are offering those limited number of programs in face-to-face environment, but we are maintaining social distancing throughout all of these offerings. So we’ve installed plexiglass throughout campus, various offices. We have ample cleaning supplies. We actually take temperatures of all students before the day begins. So they do that. They put on the masks; we encourage the use of a mask. We don’t require but we certainly encourage it, and actually we had volunteers who sewed the hundreds of them and gave them out to our students and to our employees. So we pulled off large group social gathering spots. We have intensive end of the day cleaning and weekend cleaning by custodial staff.”
He says they continue to serve the community, but at this time the campus (with the exception of the Lifelong Learning and Recreation Center — or LLRC) remains closed to the public.
(as said:) “If anybody needs any help, please reach out to us through our website or by calling the college or by emailing because we do want to help people, but we’re… we’re not just taking people from the general public onto campus yet. This summer we’re really here mostly for our students and future students. And then as I said handling everybody else virtually.”
Dr. Hartog says the LLRC is open to members with some limitations including limited open hours. For more information, you can contact the LLRC.
We asked Hartog about the fall semester. He says we need to keep in mind that this is a fluid situation.
(as said:) “As of today, we are planning on offering everything like we normally would however, we are also behind the scenes working on some contingency plans. And what I can say is that we learned a lot when we had to pivot from face-to-face to online this past spring. So capitalizing on what we learned in that process, we believe we could do an even better job if we needed to, to pivot from face-to-face to more of the online, maybe that might happen if there were some kind of an outbreak — right? — of the COVID in our immediate area that would warrant a move away from the face to face. Hopefully that wouldn’t mean having to discontinue face-to-face classes for the duration of a term. We think it might be — if it happens — something that would be shorter term. But at any case obviously we would follow all federal, state, and local guidance on that. But as of today, our plan is to offer face-to-face and all other classes online, whatever hybrid as we have historically offered them with the realization that we need to be ready to change if needed.”
Hartog says if you have any questions, you may certainly call NCC at 324-5061 or 800-352-4907. Or check out the information on their website at nwicc.edu.
