November video message from President Belton

Throughout this fall semester, our students, staff, and faculty members have dedicated themselves to the cause of living and learning safely, demonstrating tremendous resiliency in service of the greater good. What that resiliency has looked like day-to-day is a very quiet, sleepy campus—a campus waiting to reawaken.

I’ve been hearing from some students, in particular those living on or near campus, that they’re eager to return to our campus classrooms. I’ve heard from others, especially those who are waiting out the pandemic in multigenerational households, that they are thankful that the majority of our courses have remained remote.

That’s why I wanted to share with you our current thinking about spring semester. The long and the short of it is this: Pierce County is currently in the midst of its third surge of the pandemic. The case rate per 100,000 people (one of our ten dial metrics) is currently above 130. For context, that’s up nearly 300 percent from mid-September. At that point, we were approaching a case rate of 50, which is where we would want that metric to be to support moving to Stage Four of our Campus Status Dial. In short, the disappointing reality is that things are not getting better in Pierce County right now.

That said, one thing that has greatly improved in the last few months is our understanding of the virus. That understanding is helping us better meet the needs of students, keep our campus safe, and prepare our varsity athletic teams to safely return to competition in the spring.

The spring class schedule is already out, with the instructional methods listed for each course. Classes listed as Online will remain online for the duration of the semester. Classes listed as Blended will have both online and in-person learning opportunities—provided, of course, that we can safely deliver in-person instruction. We have more than twice as many spring courses listed as blended compared to the fall.

We are also committed to creating additional opportunities for in-person interactions within the academic division, which might take the form of casual, small group interactions with students and faculty from a related set of courses, or small group gatherings with deans, students, and even alumni from particular majors, minors, or fields of study. We’ll share more details as plans develop.

Currently, our campus safety dial remains at Stage Three. The dial reflects data from campus, county, and state health reporting, along with directives from public-health officials.

If things are able to improve in the county and in Western Washington, and we are able to remain safe on campus, I am hopeful that we will be able to move the campus safety dial to Stage Four or even Stage Five sometime during the spring semester, providing students with new opportunities to safely experience the in-person elements of blended courses.

I imagine we are all in agreement that we cannot responsibly move that dial forward while our county is experiencing a surge in cases. In the meantime, what we’re doing behind the scenes is preparing as many courses as we can to provide blended learning opportunities so that when that dial does move, as many students as possible will experience a substantial change in the learning and will be able to gradually reconnect with our campus.

We just have to stay committed and stay together, Lutes. And I know we will.