Meetings held on Zoom
The first online Academic Senate meeting was held Monday, March 23.
March 25, 2020
The Los Medanos College Academic Senate held its first online Zoom meeting Monday, March 23 from 3 to 5 p.m.
Due to California’s state-wide shelter-in-place order, students, staff and faculty are not allowed to leave their homes for anything other than essentials until further notice.
As the situation regarding the COVID-19 virus continues to change every day, faculty and staff have made it a point to continue hosting meetings through Zoom as a means of updating and communicating with one another until the shelter-in-place order is lifted.
Morgan Lynn was one of the 61 members of LMC to attend the Academic Senate meeting and ask questions.
Throughout the two hour meeting Monday, 61 various members of the faculty and staff attended to ask questions, receive updates about how LMC is handling the shelter in place and if summer course registration is still happening and so on.
“I want to thank everyone for stepping up, getting courses and course content in a remote learning mode- which I think will become more of a built-out module grouping within the next four to five weeks,” said Laurie Huffman, Distance Education Coordinator and Foreign Language Professor.
Huffman, and her fellow Distance Education members, have been working tirelessly to assist professors at LMC transition all coursework and material online during this uncertain time.
Members of Distance Education Learning develop educational courses that are delivered remotely, or online.
“We really owe these people [Distance Education] a debt of gratitude for the way that they have stepped up and done the training’s [for professors]. It’s just been amazing to watch and we’re very fortunate to have them working with us,” said Academic Senate President Josh Bearden.
The Academic Senate also touched upon summer classes, and whether or not they are still happening this year.
As of the meeting on Monday, summer courses are to transition completely online, and any course that cannot transition online will be canceled for the time being. This information may change as more decisions are made in the Academic Senate and the Contra Costa Community College District.
Students who are struggling to transition to online classes this semester, due to lack of access to the internet, a computer, or specific computer software, may be able to borrow a laptop or Chromebook from LMC until on-campus resources open again.
Keep an eye out for more information about the laptops and Chromebooks for temporary use on the LMC Experience website.
The Governing Board at the Contra Costa Community College District also held a regular meeting through Zoom March 25.
The Shared Governance Council of LMC had its first Zoom meeting Wednesday, March 25 from 2 to 4 p.m. as well. Twenty faculty members and LMC Associated Students President Thrya Cobbs were in attendance at the meeting, where they discussed the 2020 school budget and the college vision statement. The district Governing Board also had a meeting March 25 from 5 – 6 p.m. on Zoom, joining other groups in social distancing.
“The future bodes difficult decisions for us as a college, but we’ll get through it,” said LMC President Bob Kratochvil at the SGC meeting.
For more information about any of the topics above, please refer to the News section of the LMC Experience, where stories are posted daily.
