Colorado Condition University Pueblo, a campus of about 4,000 students with virtually 50 % from underrepresented backgrounds and a significant range of very first-generation faculty college students, has obtained nationwide recognition for its response to the pandemic.
The American Association of Condition Faculties and Universities tapped CSU Pueblo for the 2021 Excellence and Innovation Award for Campus Pandemic Reaction, according to a information launch.
“What we all understood really immediately throughout the pandemic is absolutely nothing would ever pretty be the similar and our campus was heading to need to have to occur out on the other side all set for a unique established of problems,” claimed Donna Souder Hodge, main technique officer and coordinator for CSU Pueblo’s COVID-19 Reaction and Preparing Workforce.
“We’ll under no circumstances, at any time forget we have to choose treatment of our individuals. You just can’t just worry about the academic lives of your college students or your college and staff,” she claimed. ” You actually need to have to consider about well being and wellness. These are factors universities — K-12 and schools — have been little by little discovering, but the pandemic place a big exclamation mark on that for us.”
Vital components that factored into CSU Pueblo’s becoming honored incorporate: committing to constant work for all workers all through the pandemic developing specialist progress possibilities to teach employees on inequities and hardships their pupils may perhaps be experiencing and making procedures to improved accommodate remote function and versatile several hours, which the campus hopes to continue when the pandemic is in excess of.
“I believe for several years, there is been dialogue about the possibilities in bigger education for versatile mastering,” Souder Hodge stated. “We proved we could do it. We had been forced to do a quick pilot of what that could look like with the pandemic, and we discovered how to do some points greater.”
To take care of the distribute of the novel coronavirus, CSU Pueblo partnered with Spartan Medical and NTT Facts Products and services to carry out COVID-19 screening paired with a electronic system to support college students, faculty and workers commence returning to campus, the college said.
Within six weeks, CSU Pueblo’s COVID-19 positivity amount fell from 20% to much less than 1%, the college claimed.
“This was about understanding from the pandemic and using it as a catalyst for change,” Souder Hodge reported.