Despite upcoming fall virtual semester, Stan State president Junn remains upbeat
A small faculty and teacher-to-student ratio will temper the impact of distance learning at Stanislaus State, according to its president, Ellen Junn.
“Our campus is working hard to ramp up our services and courses in the next exciting way,” Junn said. “Our campus is very lucky compared to other CSUs as we have the smallest faculty and teacher to student ratio (20.8 per faculty individual). ...
“We have 100 clubs and they still meet virtually. It will be a different experience and we have an amazing group of faculty and staff who are eager to try this brave new world.”
Junn spoke on Tuesday, a few days after California State University Chancellor Timothy White announced last week that campuses will not reopen for the fall semester, with virtually all classes online.
She released the school’s plans for the semester the following day, and spoke with The Bee ahead of the school’s campuswide town hall on Wednesday, May, 27. It’s scheduled from 10-11:30 a.m., and will address questions about the upcoming semester.
The coronavirus pandemic wiped out in-class learning in late March at the main campus in Turlock and the Stockton campus as well, and has school officials scrambling to prepare for a similar fall as well as potential budget cuts and impacts on student enrollment.
Junn said she sent emails to incoming freshmen and transfer students about the upcoming semester.
While she didn’t have exact figures, the number of arriving freshmen compared to last year’s class is “really strong”, said Junn, adding that the school will have more transfer students than last year.
The price of tuition isn’t changing due to a virtual semester and Junn said students aren’t getting a “lower-quality” education because they can’t attend in-person classes.
“We are going to deliver the same high-quality experience, it’s just happening through a computer,” she said. “We have discussed making some classes (one has nearly 200 students) smaller and breaking it up into smaller discussion sessions.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom released the state’s budget proposal on May 13 and CSU’s and UC’s budgets would each take a 10 percent cut.
Junn said she can’t make projections yet on potential layoffs to staff.
She wrote in her blog last week that the school “received $6.67 million in emergency funding for our students from the federal CARES Act, and more than $5.5 million already has been disbursed directly to meet our students’ emergency needs. More than half of our enrolled students received automatic grants between $350 and $1,200 each, depending on their estimated family contribution, and part-time or full-time status. There is still some funding available.”
The deadline for that funding is Thursday and can be found at the student portal.
As for faculty members, Junn said they have engaged in seminars regarding online teaching such as creating student engagement and which video communication software works best.
Junn has also held virtual office hours every Thursday, when students can ask questions which they submit online and those will continue in the fall.
Dorms and food service will remain open for students in the fall. The school has 700 dorm spaces and 130 are filled now. The school can’t fill all the spaces without violating social-distancing rules and currently, it’s one student per room.
While the school is preparing for the upcoming semester, there is still the matter of graduation for the Class of 2020.
With nearly 75 percent of the school’s students being first in their families to graduate from college, the school sent out a survey asking graduates if they would be OK with a virtual graduation.
The overwhelming response was “no” and Junn said they will schedule it when it’s safely allowed.
This story was originally published May 21, 2020 at 4:32 AM.
