0820_AUG Comstock's Magazine 0820 August | Page 41

HIGHER EDUCATION
The Pandemic Has
Shown That Virtual
Learning Can Be
Quality Learning
by Robert S. Nelsen
Robert S. Nelsen became Sacramento State’s
eighth president in 2015. As the first in his family
to attend college, he earned his bachelor’s
and master’s degrees in political science from
Brigham Young University and his doctorate at
the University of Chicago’s John U. Nef Committee
on Social Thought.
The moment that defined for me just
how COVID-19 changed Sacramento
State happened the morning I saw
a flock of turkeys gathered on our
nearly deserted campus. A passing
coyote noticed the turkeys, and they
seemed to scare him, so he trotted
away before suddenly turning back
and running at the birds. The turkeys
skittered away as fast as they could,
but the coyote was much faster. All
of a sudden, the turkeys remembered
they can fly, and up into the trees
they went. They were safe.
That sums up what has happened
on our campus: We’re all learning
exactly who we are and what we can
do. We’ve always known that Sac State
is a teaching institution; instruction
is at the heart of what we do. Even
though we’ve offered online classes, we
always thought that instruction is best
face-to-face. Now we see that it can be
partly face-to-face and partly virtual,
or it can be all virtual.
We did a double take — like the turkeys
and coyote did — and remembered
who we are. Our mission is to graduate
as many students as we can, as quickly as
we can, with the very best education we
can give them. Now we have to deliver on
something else: safety.
That is why we closed the campus
in mid-March to slow the spread of
the coronavirus. We gave 1,863 faculty
members the difficult task of converting
their classes to distance learning in just
four days before the spring semester
resumed. We sent most of our 1,534
staff members home to work remotely.
Despite this abrupt change, only 70
students, out of a total of 31,156, dropped
out of school between March 17 and the
end of the semester.
One of the most difficult decisions we
made was to postpone commencement
for our nearly 10,000 graduates from the
Class of 2020 — the largest class in Sacramento
State’s 73-year-history — until May
2021 at Golden 1 Center.
Adjusting to the new norm
Sacramento State will look very different
this fall because of COVID-19 and
social distancing. Only 7 percent of
courses will be held in-person to accommodate
students, such as those in
our nursing program, who must spend
time in simulation clinics, and students
in dance and theater.
Our dorms will have no more than
1,000 residents, living one student to a
room. The Servery at the Dining Commons
and the Courtyard Market, both at
the residence halls, will be open to feed
those students. There may be some graband-go
options available on campus as
well. The University Union will be closed
for the fall semester, but our fitness and
health center, The WELL, will be open.
Increasing options, partnerships
In the past, when summer-session
classes were held on campus, we only
had about 4,000 students. This summer,
7,000 students are enrolled, which
shows that they like the convenience
of taking courses online. We also want
our students to have the best education
possible, which is why the university
committed $1 million in federal
funding to fund a program where 800
faculty are honing their skills for virtual
teaching.
Sac State will help the region recover
with powerful campus-community
partnerships such as the Carlsen Center
for Innovation & Entrepreneurship,
which is offering virtual boot camps and
other programs to help young businesses
move forward. This summer, the
Carlsen Center partnered with Fourth-
Wave, a local accelerator for women-led
tech companies. The Center’s role
is to expand FourthWave’s network
of mentors, advisers, subject-matter
experts and investors, and offer handson
support. Two Sac State students will
receive Women’s Innovation Fellowships
through FourthWave.
Looking toward the future
Sacramento State has dedicated itself
to being an anti-racist campus and to
increasing educational attainment for
vulnerable populations — ProjectAttain
is a good example of that commitment.
The university is leading this
initiative alongside Align Capital
Region to increase educational
attainment for working-age adults
(25-64 years old) who began but never
finished their degree or postsecondary
credential. There are roughly 345,000
adults with some college education but
no degree in the Sacramento region,
and a disproportionate share are
people of color. Especially during an
economic downturn, the leasteducated
workers are the most vulnerable.
ProjectAttain aims to increase
our region’s educational attainment to
60 percent by 2025.
The Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching rewarded Sac
State’s contributions and commitment to
the region with its prestigious 2020 Carnegie
Community Engagement Classification
endorsement. Sacramento State was
just one of 119 U.S. colleges and universities
to be named a community-engaged
campus this year.
In closing, the future of Sac State is
bright because our students are our future.
We believe in them, and we are committed
to never losing sight of our goal: to
graduate students with a great education.
August 2020 | comstocksmag.com 41