CHARLESTON, W.Va. — At colleges and universities across West Virginia, it’s an historic time as the 2020 Spring Semester continues off campuses, part of statewide efforts to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus.
One of those institutions going completely online with coursework starting this week was Glenville State College located in Gilmer County in the heart of the Mountain State where, prior to Monday, less than 25 percent of classes were not conducted in person.
“We’ve never been completely online before — like probably most institutions in the state,” said Dr. Gary Morris, provost and vice president of academic affairs at Glenville State.
He talked with MetroNews on Day 2 of the “new normal” with instruction being delivered to Glenville State students online via YouTube, Skype, Microsoft Teams and other methods.
“It’s left up to the instructors to decide what the best way for them to deliver their content is and it’s all over the place,” said Morris.
In general, Glenville State’s transition was built onto the existing Blackboard system that already linked the campus.
Similar steps came during extended spring breaks in March on campuses in other parts of West Virginia and other states.
Full online instruction began on Monday at schools that included West Virginia University, Marshall University, West Virginia University at Parkersburg, Shepherd University and West Virginia State University.
“It has been a pretty massive shift in a pretty short period of time,” said Dr. Sarah Armstrong Tucker, interim chancellor for the Higher Education Policy Commission and chancellor of the West Virginia Community and Technical College System.
Concord University made the change last week along with Bluefield State College and Fairmont State University.
Transitions were also continuing at West Liberty University, Wheeling University and other higher education institutions.
“Some lectures will need to be videotaped and livestreamed. Some coursework is able to completed via email. It’s just sort of depends on the course and where they are in the semester,” said Dr. Tucker.
“Getting people trained on how to do this effectively has been a pretty significant challenge, making sure that we have the bandwidth in the state to be able to do this. We have a lot of students too who don’t have internet access from their home.”
Bandwidth on WVNET, which connects schools to the internet, has been ramped up to handle increased traffic.
At Glenville State, Morris said a few students without any access to the internet in off-campus locations were given special permission to remain in the residence halls following screenings for COVID-19 symptoms and then precautionary self-quarantines.
Nineteen students deemed high risk or in high need for a variety of reasons were remaining on campus as of Tuesday.
Other students were permitted to schedule appointments to retrieve items from Glenville State’s residence halls.
“Overall, morale seems to be pretty good. I think this having been in the news for some time before we had to make some decisions helped because people were aware this was coming,” Morris said.
West Virginia University officials previously said the decision to keep students off campuses in Morgantown, Beckley and Keyser was being made “out of an abundance of caution to best protect its campuses and the communities at-large.”
All campus buildings, including residence halls, were closed and all WVU employees were required to work from home with exceptions for those needed to keep online operations running along with a select few others.
Students were not allowed to return to campuses except under limited circumstances until notified.
At Marshall University, faculty and staff members went through training prior to the transition online on Monday.
Final exams were scheduled at Marshall from Apr. 30 to May 1.
“It’s been a very big challenge. Higher ed has faced some very significant challenges through this COVID crisis,” said Tucker. “The institutions are doing their best to make sure that their campus communities stay safe.”
At Glenville State, Dr. Morris agreed.
“I was a little nervous, but the faculty here have been remarkable,” Morris said.
“They knew what was happening and they said, ‘What can I do to help? How can I do this?’ It speaks to the nature of the people in this industry and at this campus that we’ve been able to do that.”