Question.

[Campo, Peggy]

Hi everyone.

I hope this email finds you all well.  I have a question for this illustrious group of colleagues.  My college district has decided to go back to face-to-face instruction for our upcoming fall semester.  This past spring, the Biology discipline faculty across all three colleges within the district gathered to agree upon which Bio courses would be allowed to be done entirely online, or hybrid, or only face-to-face.  We all agreed that most of our lab classes could be done only in a hybrid format, with face-to-face instruction for labs and online for lectures.  But we did not think students were served best when these lab classes were fully online; so, no lab courses were approved to be done fully online.  We submitted our DE forms to curriculum, and these went through the regular approval process.  Now, one of our sister colleges in the district has decided to conduct many of the lab classes we agreed would only be done in hybrid format to be held fully online- recurring to our DX (emergency DE amendment) to justify their allowance to do so.  Hence my question: is this permissible or even legal?  I was not involved in the discussions as to how they justified using the emergency DE status for courses, and I was wondering what did I miss what would allow for this type of situation to occur?  Enrollments across the district are low, as is the norm across the state, and I'm sure that was main reason behind the change from hybrid lab classes to fully online.  But now my colleagues and I at my local college have to answer the countless emails from students asking why my college is not scheduling any fully online lab classes.

Any and all feedback is warmly appreciated.

Peggy Campo
she/her/hers

Professor, Anatomy and Physiology

Norco College, Riverside Community College District

Happily, Past President, Norco Academic Senate President

(951) 739-7855
Office: ST 201E

"To err is human, to blame someone else is more human yet."  Marcos Mundstock, Les Luthiers