The coronavirus pandemic restrictions are changing on the daily as we have seen over the last week. Utah State University Eastern has moved their classes to online format and have closed several public facilities during this time. Castle Country Radio had the opportunity to speak with Associate Vice President, Greg Dart about the latest news taking place on campus.
“We’ve always prided ourselves as being a big part of this community and at this point with some of the things that have come from the health department and from the governor, we’ve just felt the need to close most of our public areas on campus. You mentioned the Prehistoric Museum, the BDAC, the Geary Event Center you know our campus right now is really just operating to serve the needs of our students,” stated Dart. Activities, events and public facilities will be closed until May 1, as soon as they are able to open, they will notify the community.
Commencement ceremonies at all USU campuses have been canceled. “Unprecedented times calls for unprecedented measures and that’s where we are at but having said that we still want to do something to honor and celebrate those graduates and so we are working on that now. What that might look like if its something at a later time if we’re still doing something but just virtually at that time and so we will have more information as we develop those plans,” explained Dart. It is important that students understand that although commencement is canceled it doesn’t mean that their hard work is not appreciated.
Most of the students have gone home at this time but are continuing their academic learning via online courses. “I think it’s really interesting this year that Utah State University is celebrated 25 years in online education. It’s something that we kind of put a focus on that we are pioneers in that and never at any time in the history of the university has it been as necessary as it is right now. Because we’ve moved so much of our curriculum online. We have a lot of our instructors teaching online with very few exceptions, the only exceptions really being in our Career Technical Education courses,” said Dart. Those few students that are still attending their CTE courses are practicing safe social distancing during this time.
To keep informed on Utah State University Eastern visit their website at http://usueastern.edu/