STLCC leadership discusses what’s changed, what hasn’t and what could.
BY: JACOB POLITTE
Managing Editor
Nearly two years after the pandemic began in earnest, the world at large is still dealing with the consequences. That world includes St. Louis Community College (STLCC) and its leadership, who have continually adapted to the pandemic’s challenges, both on a safety and academic level.
Dr. Felicca Moore-Davis, the Meramec Campus President, said that she thinks that STLCC has adapted well to the challenges that the pandemic has presented.
“The feedback [from instructors and other campus staff] has been mostly positive,” she said. “Our intent was to ensure the safety of all our students and employees, and knowing that, I think everyone worked together to get us through the uncertain period with patience and grace.”
“I feel we have done well,” said STLCC’s Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs Andrew Langrehr when discussing how he feels STLCC adapted to the challenges. “We adjusted quickly, the safety measures we put in place were effective, and the learning has continued. We also learned from this experience. There are new modes of instruction, more paperless processes, and expanded use of virtual meeting technology, just as examples.”
Langrehr also addressed another unusual change that has occurred throughout the school year: classes have been allowed to take place regardless of enrollment numbers.
“With some of the funding provided to the College in response to the pandemic we were able to retain classes that would have been canceled in the past due to low enrollment,” he said. “This was true in both the fall 2021 semester and the spring 2022 semester.”
In terms of specific happenings at the Meramec campus, Moore-Davis addressed the situation regarding the lack of a campus cafeteria. She previously spoke on the issue with the Montage last September and said that the college’s contract with the cafeteria vendor had expired during the pandemic’s harshest months; it had been closed since March 2020. The campus bookstore has since moved into the space, while offering new food and drink items like pizza and Kaldi’s Coffee, in addition to snacks.
Regarding the bookstore’s move, she said “With changes in the bookstore focusing primarily on online ordering and distribution of course materials, it’s too early to know if this will be a permanent space. As we look to the future with ‘STLCC Transformed,’ we are open to what and how the current spaces serves our students best.”
Moore-Davis also spoke about the renovations to the Lecture Hall building, which reopened for classes this semester. She says there are a few items left on the task list to complete, but that the feedback received about the renovations has been overwhelmingly positive.
“The spaces are great for teaching and learning,” she said. “We will be doing an assessment of the spaces to make sure it works according to our planning.” Moore-Davis also gave a specific price tag for renovations: $1,142,047.07.
Hart Nelson is STLCC’s new Chief Operating Officer. He says that as the pandemic has gone on, STLCC’s COVID policies have continually evolved.
“I would say there have been regular significant changes to STLCC’s COVID policies, mostly based on the changes in the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and local public health authority orders,” Nelson said. “We maintained our mask requirement to avoid confusion when the city and county did not have synchronized policies. We have also adjusted our layered mitigating policies as we learned more about the virus. For example, as we learned that surface transfer was less of a risk than initially involved we changed our policies regarding mailroom processing and laptop distribution for students and employees.”
Nelson also addressed the college’s mask policy in the face of many mask mandates in the states coming to an end.
“The college participates in both statewide and regional COVID calls with other institutes of higher education,” he said. “We have been closely monitoring CDC and local public health authority guidance on masks and expect that these policies could change soon. We will follow the guidance of our public health leaders.”
He continued, “Currently, [the] CDC recommends that unvaccinated individuals continue to wear masks while indoors in public locations, so there could be a different recommendation based on vaccination status.”
The Healthfully App must be filled out by unvaccinated students before each arrival to campus. Nelson says that the college can not view a student’s individual response to the screening questions, but that the App has a Health Check screen that shows whether or not a student is cleared to be on campus.
Regarding the continued usage of the app, Nelson said, “There is discussion in the scientific and public health community on whether contact tracing support efforts like the Healthfully app are still valuable as the COVID pandemic becomes an endemic condition. That is something else the Employee and Student Engagement Team will be discussing.”
Regardless of whatever happens going forward, there seems to be some normalcy setting in for most of the Meramec campus, even if that normalcy looks different than it used to.
“I think we are creating our normal everyday now,” Moore-Davis said. “I certainly love to be on campus, but normalcy is now a more fluid term.”
