CONVERT, Don’t Cancel

Fort Hays State University’s 2020 mantra

On New Year’s Eve 2019, the Municipal Health Commission in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, reported a cluster of pneumonia cases to the World Health Organization (WHO). Five days later, a WHO press release announced to the world the identification of a novel coronavirus. A five-hour drive north of Wuhan lies the city of Zhengzhou, the home of Sias University, Fort Hays State University’s partner in global education. Sias University would be ground zero for the university’s initial response to COVID-19.

Close to 4,500 Chinese students at Sias University enroll each year in oncampus FHSU degree programs. The spring semester at Sias was slated to begin on Feb. 24, but by late January, university officials at Sias decided to postpone indefinitely the start of the term due to the rapid spread of the virus in China. Online education, so much a part of the higher education landscape in the United States, was nearly non-existent in China. But a seismic change was coming, and FHSU faculty and learning technologists would be key agents in that change.

Before the rise of the COVID pandemic, the Chinese government’s practice was to limit students access to information and digital communications. Forced to move home due to the pandemic, many of FHSU’s students in China didn’t have access to computers or the internet at home, but most had cell phones.

To add to the complexity of the issue, most Chinese students had no experience in online education. Dr. Andrew Feldstein and his Teaching Innovation and Learning Technologies (TILT) team knew that the only way to save the spring term in China was to convert 29 on-campus Sias courses to a mobile-friendly, online format – and he and his team only had three weeks to get it done.

“We looked on this seemingly immense challenge and sense of urgency as an opportunity to greatly expand the teaching and learning tools available to our faculty involved in our partnership programs in China,” Feldstein said.

The spring term began at Sias on Feb. 24. Using what the team learned or developed in transitioning Sias courses to online delivery, the TILT team was able to do the same for students at FHSU’s other major global partner, Shenyang Normal University, in time for its spring term to start on March 30. “Convert, don’t cancel,” a term first coined by FHSU President Tisa Mason that has guided the university’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic since the early spring, was born out of this effort to save the spring semester on our partner campuses in China.

On March 16, with the COVID-19 pandemic now beginning to spread across the United States, President Mason announced FHSU’s plan to transition the university to remote operations. The majority of students

living in the residence halls departed for home on March 17.

Over the course of the university’s annual spring break, TILT worked with faculty to transition more than 800 on-campus course sections to an online format. Spring semester courses resumed on March 30 and continued through the end of the term.

The next looming challenge the university faced was what to do with the annual spring commencement celebration. President Mason and Jill Arensdorf, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, shared the view that commencement is a premier lifechanging event for our students and their families, one they have worked for, saved for and made sacrifices to make possible.

So what could the university do for those slated to graduate in May? President Mason suggested that if we couldn’t bring graduates and their families to campus for commencement, we could still give them what they needed to create their own family commencement celebration.

The idea of creating a “regalia kit” for every graduate was born out of President Mason’s challenge. In a massive effort led by the Academic Affairs and Student Affairs teams, contents for each regalia kit were gathered. The contents of each kit was extensive and included a mortarboard cap, a gown, a tassel, a hood for master’s degree graduates, a commencement program, a small horn, confetti, a Tiger decal, a lapel pin, a personal note from President Mason and the most important of all – an official FHSU diploma for each student. In late May, more than 80 volunteers gathered in Gross Memorial Coliseum to assemble and ship approximately 1,800 kits to spring and summer 2020 graduates.

“The collaboration on the regalia kit project within such a short time frame showcased the true spirit of FHSU – grit and determination,” Arensdorf said. “ These kits were a unique way for us to come together to celebrate our students’ reaching that important milestone in their lives – graduating with a college degree.”

The challenge remained how – or if – to replace the long-standing tradition of holding commencement in GMC. Several ideas were considered, including producing a live-streamed graduation event. But President Mason has always seen commencement as a singular and special event for graduates, their families and for the campus community, and she remained firm in her belief that there is simply no substitute for a full FHSU commencement ceremony.

As the search for a future date for graduation celebration was launched, the Office of University Relations and Marketing began planning an alternative to the now postponed spring commencement celebration on campus. A virtual commencement event celebration was held on June 19, giving graduates an opportunity to share their family graduation celebrations and show off their regalia and well-earned FHSU diplomas across several social media channels.

The university’s Facebook page served as the hub for an event that featured pre-recorded video and personal messages of congratulations from members of the university community in honor of our newest Tiger alumni. The online event drew more than 750,000 social media viewers.

As the summer continued, planning for an anticipated return to an on-campus fall semester intensified. The TILT team played an instrumental role in the conversion of traditional on-campus courses to new delivery methods designed to balance COVID-19 health and safety precautions while maintaining studentprofessor connectedness and academic excellence.

Working in close collaboration with the TILT team, university faculty converted more than 800 courses to a hybrid-delivery platform. TILT also provided faculty – many who were new to technology-enhanced teaching and learning – with new strategies for course design, software platforms for course delivery and personalized direct support for any faculty who requested the assistance.

In her video welcome back message to students on the Friday before the start of the fall term, President Mason said that the last five months felt like the longest spring break ever. For the faculty and staff at FHSU, there was no break. There was detailed and vital work to be done and very little time on the calendar to be ready to deliver a very different, but still great, FHSU experience this fall. The innovative spirit and extraordinary persistence of our university community rising to a challenge were on full display throughout the spring and summer of 2020.

The traditional opening of campus for each fall semester begins with move-in days. Student life leaders knew that in the midst of a pandemic, they would have to bring order to what is typically a chaotic Saturday and Sunday prior to the start of classes.

To maintain the health and safety protocols established in the university’s reopening plan, two move-in days would need to become a move-in week. In an effort to further limit the chance of coronavirus spread, this year’s move-in activities would not include the scores of campus volunteers who traditionally join in the effort. This year, it would be up to residence life staff to manage every student move-in.

Each student signed up for a movein day and time in advance, and on a hot August morning, a caravan of cars, trucks and minivans began cueing up in long lines that snaked along the approaches to the residential living areas of campus. In a remarkable feat of logistical mastery, more than 1,300 students were welcomed or welcomed back to their home away from home.

While the coronavirus drove the change, the modified move-in process also produced unpredicted benefits. The new approach allowed residence hall staff to individually meet and greet each student, parent and family member. For new and returning students, this personalized approach created opportunities to begin or renew relationships and discuss the health and safety-related changes to the student life experience this academic year.

A very different fall semester began on Aug. 17. Approximately six-in-ten of the courses that were originally scheduled as traditional in-person offerings were offered as hybrid courses. Under this model, students were offered a blend of in-person and online learning activities designed to balance health and safety precautions without losing the essential personal engagement that is fundamental to the FHSU student experience. In an additional effort to ensure the best possible learning environment was maintained, laboratory or studio-based courses that could not be converted to hybrid or online delivery were offered as accelerated eight-week courses.

This “convert, don’t cancel” innovation allowed faculty and students in these programs to minimize potentially hazardous in-class contact time with no drop in the quality of the in-person learning experience.

Over the course of the past eight months, a global pandemic forced our university community to innovate, adapt and persevere. Thankfully, turning challenges into opportunities is what Tiger Nation does best.

At the point when this article was finished, we still do not know what direction the COVID-19 pandemic will take us. But what is clear is that the remarkable ethic of care that is perhaps the most compelling feature of this great university community will keep us focused on our core mission of developing the next generation of engaged citizen-leaders.