The spring 2020 Student Phone Outreach Campaign was designed to reach three priority populations: military affiliates, College Credit Plus students (high school students completing college credits while still in school), and any student who had not enrolled in 100 percent online instruction prior to cancellation of in-person classes because of COVID-19.
A number of Sinclair employees were tasked with making individualized calls to students to check-in with them, help manage stress and support successful transition to online-only instruction.
Where there were issues and concerns, students were referred to faculty members, academic advisors and a number of student support offices, including financial aid, tutoring and accessibility services.
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Robert Baker, a baking and pastry student at Sinclair, feels that the at-a-distance learning is holding up well for him right now.
“I’m a bakery and pastry student and it’s so great that I’m still able to get the hands-on learning that I need to excel in this profession on a daily basis because of my amazing professors,” he said. “Through the online platform, we get live tutorials from our professors and then go back and work recipes from our own home kitchens. We then come back and discuss and share our work flow.”
Sinclair President Steve Johnson said that the students impacted by the unexpected changes seem to still be critically engaged in their education.
“Student engagement is a critical part of student success and we will continue that through remote delivery,” he said. “We are proud to have already made significant progress. Based on data from less than a week since class resumed, we have seen over 50,000 log-ins, of which over 36,000 were from students, many of whom had formerly been face-to-face only. This wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our extremely dedicated staff and faculty.”
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