By Sherry Sokolowski
Grand Rapids Community College recently announced that the format for classes in the winter 2021 semester will be modified in order to protect students, faculty, and staff from the COVID-19 pandemic. While some classes will continue to remain in-person, a majority will be altered to one of three formats: online, virtual, or hybrid.
College administrators looked at what is happening nationally, state-wide, and locally in Kent County, as well as data from the Health Department and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to make their decision.
“We feel our best planning forward is to at least maintain what we’re doing now and really doing an assessment of how things worked this fall, and making decisions for the winter,” said Dr. Brian Knetl, GRCC Provost and Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs.
Similarly to this fall semester, around 25% of classes will be held on campus for the winter. The remainder of them will be in some sort of an online or virtual format.
As many students know, the shift to online learning has not been easy. Students everywhere are adjusting to the newfound obstacles online learning brings.
“I definitely understand their perspective, but it’s definitely hard from a student perspective because I personally feel like I learn better in person”, said Allison Hoop, 19-year-old, GRCC culinary student.
While a majority of students prefer in-person learning, the rise of COVID-19 cases across college campuses makes this difficult.
“I prefer in person classes, I learn better that way,” said N’junge Gathungu, 19-year-old, GRCC student. “I think it’s a way better form of teaching, but we are still in a pandemic, so I think it was the smart thing to do.”
For students who prefer a face-to-face interaction with their professors, it’s recommended that they sign up for virtual classes next semester, where their classes will meet at a scheduled time on a Zoom call.
“That may be a good middle ground,” said Knetl.
These classes aren’t on-campus, but they aren’t entirely online either. Virtual classes are a way of getting interaction with professors and classmates while remaining safe in your home.
GRCC wants its students to know that there are a plethora of resources and options, such as tutoring and advising, for them during this time. As both students and professors alike are becoming more familiar with these new formats. Knetl said the college will “continue to put more support in place” for online learning.
“The one thing that hasn’t changed for us is our desire to support students,” said Knetl. “Now, we’ve been doing that for over a 100 years, and we’re going to continue to do that over the next 100 years.”
Beginning Oct.1, students are encouraged to go to their Online Center accounts to check if their winter semester schedule has been altered.
