Student Communication and Chromebook Loans

Good morning, Comets!

Congratulations on completing your first day of fully remote college services! 

We have a couple exciting developments today I want to share with you: 

STUDENT COMMUNICATION

All of our student services came together yesterday to create a guide for accessing their services remotely. We have combined this with earlier student-facing communications to make a single, one-stop page that addresses many of our students’ most common concerns. We are awaiting some work from our web design vendor to make it even more prominent on our website.

If you would like to share it, please use this trackable url: http://bit.ly/2WrdYQy Don’t just copy the content, as it will likely be updated frequently. Thank you to Elizabeth Bremner, Dennis Franco and everyone in Student Services who helped us put this together.

We are also continuing to reach out to students by email and text.

CHROMEBOOK LOAN PROGRAM

We have located a limited number of laptop computers, which we will make available for students in need through the library. If your students do not have a device to access their courses, you can use this form to refer them for a loaner. They can then use this device to attend remote classes and complete the semester.

There are very few available. While we have ordered more, demand is incredibly high at this time. It is unlikely that our orders will be fulfilled in a timely fashion. So, these computers need to go to the students in greatest need.

Please consider other steps that you can also take to address barriers to access before you refer a student. For example, many students are sharing devices with other members of their household. Recording your lectures to make available after your usual meeting time could help them attend your class at a different time of day, which in turn would allow another student to stay in school.

THANK YOU

You should be very proud individually and of each other for all of the incredible work you’ve been doing. You have truly demonstrated what it looks like when people who really care come together for a greater good.  We couldn’t have made it through this week without each of you!

-dab