 Good evening everyone we will start here in a minute I see there's about 17 of you on here on zoom and I know that some of you are also over on YouTube so I will go over how to get in some questions here. I will introduce Dr. Janet Black who is joining me tonight our chief academic officer over in the academic affairs vice president's office. My name is Jim McCormick I'm the vice president of student life. And we are just kind of rejoicing today on making Thanksgiving. We have almost a semester in the books and so happy about that with you students and your sons and daughters. We are just thrilled that we've been able to make it this far. And so we wanted to just be available tonight as we started thinking about after Thanksgiving break. Wanted to talk a little bit about what we're doing to get everybody back on campus. And then open the floor up for questions mainly so not expecting a very long webinar tonight we can go as long as you need. But just wanted to make our stays available to to you guys tonight for that so well it seems fitting to to ask the Lord to be with us tonight and to thank him for what he's done over these these past weeks at CCU so please join me in prayer. Lord we just thank you so much for what you've done on the campus for this fall. The safety and health that you've given us and Lord the protocols that that we've put in place you have blessed. And so we just thank you for all that you've done with the energy that's gone into it with the compliance of the students and the creativity of our academics. Lord just everything that has come together to get us to this point and now as we look forward to ending this semester well. We ask that you would journey alongside us be with us and and to see us through these last two and a half weeks so Lord we just give you other glory honor and power you deserve in Jesus name, amen. Well, let me start with just how we are getting people back from Thanksgiving and then I'll turn it over to Dr black who can talk a little bit about the academic side or anything that she wants to talk about in terms of processes. So what we're doing right now what we're prepared to do is really starting Saturday at all of the main desks on campus. The Rockmont desk for Rockmont residents, the yetter desk for yetter residents. We have the Anschutz Student Center desk for the peaks and for the row and the Prino desk for our commuting students. We want to check everybody in with a health screening, just like we did for orientation this fall, and give everyone a green wristband that has gone through that health screening. So we're going to ask that only those students who have the green wristbands attend class Monday and Tuesday of next week the 30th and the first. If you don't have a green wristband, a faculty member will ask you to leave class and get your health check before you can go back to class so if you are currently staying at CCU you're one of the students that stayed over there and you're just going to go down to your front desk or are the front desk that I just talked about. If you're in the duplexes or East campus you're going to be in the Student Center as well. And you're going to get your check Saturday or Sunday really Sundays the day we're targeting. And then we will be in front of the Prino Monday and Tuesday to check any computing students in that did not check in on Sunday. As you go to class on on Monday, you can check in at the Prino and and head on to class from there. One of the important things that that I've been asked here lately is, is there any travel restrictions going on and currently there are no travel restrictions. So no matter where you're at you'll be able to come back in now the airlines might have a travel restriction. So if the airlines are saying you must be tested or whatever that's that's up to you and and the airline. But the states are not saying anything right now in terms of you have to quarantine when you get back or your hotspot or whatever. We're welcoming all our students back after break with a health screening, and then we will go from there for the rest of the two and a half weeks. Now one important thing that we are asking is that if you are exposed to a positive person this week, or have symptoms this week we're asking you not to come back to campus we're asking you to stay home and zoom in the rest of the time and Dr black will talk about that process, even if you happen to have something late this week. But we are trying to kind of bring everybody back healthy, so we can make these last two and a half weeks. And if you are someone who is not healthy, or has been exposed and need to be quarantined or isolated because of that exposure. We want you to stay home for those for these next two and a half weeks and not come back to our community. So moving over to Dr black. I will tell you that you can use the chat function here on the zoom call to ask questions, or the Q amp a function either way. And if you're on YouTube, you can email me your questions at Jim McCormick at ccu.edu Jim McCormick one word jim mcc or m ick at ccu.edu and I'll pick those up off my email. But if you have a question use the Q amp a or the chat function here on the zoom Dr black. Hello students, and hello. Also to the faculty that might be watching or families that might might be watching as well. I would like to first of all take this opportunity to thank you students. I thank you for participating with us this fall and all the changes that happened. We know that you had to wear masks and class and stay socially distance inside and outside and you were restricted from the dormitories for a while and even then that are restrictions were partial after the first part of the year and we just want to thank you because really it's the efforts that you made, and the efforts of student life staff the efforts of faculty that have allowed us to have in seat education this fall, it's been really amazing that we're able to stay in seat you know I have colleagues across America, who are teaching online, who all the classes for whom all the classes are online or many classes are online and we have this great high flex model that still has hiccups and is still not completely. I'm going to say wonderful for student experience and for faculty experience but it has enabled us to keep you in seat and getting the best learning experience possible. I do hope that you are able to come back and be in seat for the rest of the semester we know those last two weeks are really crunch weeks, many of you have final projects to write final papers to write like collaboration, you want to go to the writing center you want to go to tutoring, you want to get ready for your final exams which will be in that middle week in December. We do want you to come back, however, what Jim McCormick just said I really want you to take to heart. If you're experiencing any symptoms at all that are cold or flu like. And you suspect or you think that you might have coven or that you've been exposed to somebody and you're not exhibiting symptoms, please, please, please stay home. Just take that personal responsibility to keep your roommates and your friends from having to be quarantined once you get back because you all know what that was like many of you were in quarantine and out. Some of you in a second time and out, some of you in a third time and out and you were great. You were great you got some meals delivered maybe maybe your groceries delivered. But you also know how uncomfortable that was and how tiring it was for you, and it was tiring for other people to so please keep this all safe. If you decide that you want to finish the semester remotely for coven reasons let's say you start having symptoms right around this week sometime, or if there's another kind of caution that you want to prepare because of coven. There's a form that has been coming to you several times every week through the student updates so that your dean and the other faculty will be able to understand and know that you are asking to be remote learner for the rest of the semester. The other thing I'm going to ask you to do is I need you to be in good connection with your professors if you're not going to be on campus for your final exams. I will give you some information there are some platforms of learning for instance chrome books that do not have the applications that are accessible to take certain kinds of exams, not all exams not everything but chrome books especially we found to be problematic in the past you may need to bring a parent's laptop with you when you come back to school you may need to. If you're at home borrow something for final exams but staying close contact with your professors, so that you don't panic there's enough work to do, just reviewing all of your material learning everything you need to learn getting those papers in getting those projects and without the anxiety of, will I be able to connect my final and some final exams are more open ended where you can connect through different periods of time and others are very time specific. You need to open that exam at a certain time and finish within a certain time. So, the best thing to do is always stay in close connection with your professors. I'm so glad that you all did such a great job this fall I'm so happy that we've had in seat learning. I'm really looking forward to spring semester and even winter term where you're going to come back on campus. I think that's so important to CCU the relationships with professors and staff that's so important to you and to us. Thank you for being part of this. Thank you Dr black again. We will open up for questions. Not a lot of information to give tonight that hasn't been out in email form for students especially last week. I have a couple questions brewing again, you can email me at Jim McCormick at CCU.edu or use the q amp a or chat function here on mine. The first one from Kendall our students not allowed to come back only if they are exposed this current week, or is it last week as well. We'd like you to serve out that 14 days. So if you can get 14 days in because you're exposed and come back to CCU, then that is fine. So, but we'd like you to get 14 days in before you before you come back to CCU. And if you have any more questions than that. You can contact your case manager if you, if you've got your case manager involved that would be your resident director where you live, or Sharon Felker if you're a commuting student. You can contact either of those and talk a little bit more about your case, because there are some nuances as we know, with this virus. And just today we heard that that quarantine may be going down from 14 to seven or 10 days but we're not adopting that yet from Kathy with Jeff co in red level status how has that changed CCU COVID processes. But the right now the only thing that's changed is you as we've had to cut back our offices from 25% to 10% so our on campus offices are cutting back staff. And most of our activities that we thought we might be able to run with 25 are now cut back to 10. And so most of our activities are all going to zoom for the rest of the semester. So, in terms of classrooms and housing and dining, nothing has changed that we can tell at this point. One thing that has changed, however, is we may need to reconsider our December graduation reception, which was planned for a larger group of 50 and then we replant it for smaller groups of 25. And if the Jeff co order the red order still stands by mid December and they may change it back to orange so we know that things change rapidly. But if it stands at red and we're not allowed to have any non instructional gatherings at all. We likely will make some significant changes in the graduation reception that we were December grads. So, what would be the indications during Christmas break that would indicate you need to move to online only and not return to campus in January. How much of this is a state of Colorado decision and how much is a CC. If you Chuck if you saw recently just yesterday I think the CDC put out a kind of a article or or an opinion that students are best in the classroom and that's what we're trying to do. So we are fully planning on coming back in January and having a spring semester just like we did in the fall. Obviously, if the state of Colorado decided to do a complete shutdown and tell us that we could not do that, then we would do that. But how much of it is a CC decision 100% on our side in terms of desiring to come back. We have our protocols that seem to have worked this fall. We are academic classroom experiences have been very good and the zoom has worked wonderfully. So we think we're in a position to replicate what we did this fall next semester. Now there's a whole lot of things that could happen that might change that decision, including the state saying you cannot be in school. But I don't think anymore. There. People are anxious to shut classrooms down. I think they understand that in person learning is the best for students. So we besides that, if we had many, many students contacting us over break that were positive and that kind of thing that would obviously cause us to pause. But we're we're planning a spring semester, just like we always have our academic calendar remain the same. And we will plow into the spring, asking the Lord to be with our protocols just like he was this fall. You know, the governor comes on every week and does his thing so we're just praying that the Lord will keep us going in the right direction as he has this fall. Let's see. The CC plan to stay open during the second semester. Is there any news regarding this topic. I think I just answered that one. We plan to come back with a rigorous spring semester again. So the Wi-Fi network improved in classrooms if more students have to stay at home and zoom in. Dr. Black, you want to talk about that. So the technology area is then looking at classrooms and monitoring the different loads on the bandwidth. What's really helpful is if any students have any problems. And this is actually not just for classrooms but even residence halls. If students have any problems with getting kicked off the zoom call. There are some things that you can do to help. First of all, you could perhaps just turn off your video and use only audio for a while. Another thing that you can do is to mark down the time and where you are so that when your class is over you reported to IT. Those reports, very specific reports of where you were and when this happened will help IT then troubleshoot what they recognize as maybe would be a bandwidth problem. I think that our Wi-Fi has had some hiccups this fall. I think many of the hiccups have been not so much in the classrooms, but more so when there are a large group of students in one specific area of campus zooming in and all at the same time. And that tends not to be in classrooms because the people in classrooms generally have their computers closed. It tends to be those students who are on campus other than classrooms. We do have professors who now are a lot more easy with the tech. We have had a great experience with educational technology assistant students who volunteered stepped up in a big way to make some of this technology happen so professors can focus on the content and not be watching when students have questions in the chat. That has worked really well. We're asking professors to go ahead and use that system again in the spring. Technology issues may pose another challenge. We're ready to make adjustments as needed. Any more questions? We are waiting on questions at this point. If you are the son or daughter or an athlete on campus, we are planning to have women's and men's basketball season starting here within the week. And indoor track will start as well so no changes there other than no fans at any of those and a ruling from Colorado today that you do not have to wear mask during competition but while on the sideline and on the bench they will. But we are planning to move ahead with winter sports at this point, albeit on a week by week basis. That's for sure. Those athletes are being tested once a week during their competition seasons. And so we will move on with that as well. We also have music performances that are going to be ongoing. There's a jazz performance on December 5. We have our great Christmas. Collation of music that will be performed in December as well. Those will be virtual performances. And we do ask that if you would like to join in on those just to go to the CCU Music webpage. Click on the performance and register your attendance. Some of the performances are free. A large Christmas music performance will have a small ticket fee but it's a ticket fee per family or per view, not necessarily per person attending. So there's still robust co-curricular activities in the School of Music as well. Let me remind everybody that our CCU Cares website has the latest on cases on campus and also has this webinar and other webinars on there for review as well. Kindle asks what do the new restrictions mean for clubs on campus? Kindle what those will mean is that your gathering will have to be 10 or less on campus. Going forward in the last two and a half weeks and if you have a event for the end of the semester, you're going to have to do that in some creative ways to keep the crowds small going forward. So look for something from campus activities here on Monday that will address all clubs and your events and activities going forward for the semester. Kathy asked if there is COVID testing available on campus? Yes, we do have COVID testing available on campus. It's by appointment. And we're asking that only symptomatic students be tested. So you can drop a note to the Health Services Office, call the Health Services Office and arrange for that testing. We usually do it on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Fridays. We have about a 36-hour turnaround to that testing and we are doing that for free for students. But we have not opened it up for the entire student body just to come get tested anytime they want to. That's not our purpose for that testing. Really our purpose for that testing is to try to cut down on quarantines and isolations if we can by getting a negative test coming back. It is a PCR test, so very highly effective test. So we're asking only students who have symptoms that may be something like they're used to in terms of an allergy or something like that and want to get a confirmation that it's not COVID. Those are the students that we're testing on campus and obviously athletes in season are being tested. That's mandatory from our conference at this point. Other announcements, Dr. Black, while we wait for any last minute questions here. I just want to say we're really excited to welcome you back. We really do want to see everybody back. That's possible to come back and we look forward to the rest of the semester. I'm really glad that we gave you a Thanksgiving break. You may have friends across the country whose schools have finished all in-person teaching as of the end of November. We are bold. We here really want those relationships with you. We really want you to be in class. We want that accountability that we know helps young students learn. We also love to see you on campus and so in our boldness we didn't change our academic calendar and we really want to move ahead with safety, with care, with care for you, care for our professors and staff, but also trying to provide the best learning experience that we know is possible for you. Last call for questions that wasn't our intention to have an hour or anything like that tonight. I just wanted to be available to those who wanted to come on and ask some questions. I echo Dr. Black's sentiments. We are just so thankful that the Lord has brought us to this point and we are just hoping to get back, get through the last two and a half weeks of school and send everybody off to what's hopefully a downward trend with all over the nation over Christmas and then set our sights on a spring semester that we're hoping obviously is a lot different than the fall in many ways. So please be in prayer with us for that. This is something that we have been praying about for the last weeks, you know, really since March. And it's a constant prayer obviously that the Lord will will just rid us of this virus completely, but that he'll also allow CCU to continue to do what we do with the students who want to be there. So, and that's what's happened this fall. So, again, if there's something that came up tonight that we didn't answer please email me at Jim McCormick at CCU.edu be glad to do that. If you have any questions about COVID symptoms are being exposed, you can always email me, or I gave that earlier if your resident director to Sharon Belcher if you're a commuter. Other than that, we will see you back this weekend for your health screening and health check, and then back in class on Monday to run the last two and a half weeks of the semester. Thank you for being with us. Great to see you. And I hope you have a great Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving.