Bulletin No. 1

Date/Time sent: 05/18/2020 8:00 am

Aloha mai UH West Oʻahu ʻOhana!

We are thoughtfully preparing our campus to welcome students, faculty, and staff come August 2020. I am most inspired by the way our campus lives and breathes the embrace of ʻohana/family by fostering close interactions and dynamic experiential learning! Ironically, what we have intentionally grown and fostered now needs to be tempered with the gentleness of “distance” – an overriding social imperative in our COVID-19 times! Please know that your UHWO administrative team, in partnership with many of your colleagues, is undeterred in our efforts to tackle the challenges ahead and will manage them assertively and creatively.

Over the last several weeks, I have brought together a CORE Committee and three work groups to shepherd our efforts. Each group is taking an inventory of where we are at and what we must do to move ahead. They will begin to design strategies that are nimble and grounded in data. You may hear the term “gating” used as a way of identifying those elements/aspects of our environment that must occur in order for us to move forward. Additionally, we invite your suggestions for modifications to any of our plans that would strengthen our actions.

We are looking at a phased process of repopulating our campus as we monitor the health conditions of our region and state. At the same time, there’s still much uncertainty of the containment of the spread of COVID-19, so, contingency plans are also being addressed – hence, the need for us to be planful and flexible. Remember, we are guided by these key principles:

Maximize our efforts that focus on the health and wellness of our students, faculty, staff and visitors.
Leverage the knowledge and skills of our faculty and staff to fortify and intensify, in innovative ways, engaged learning environments and opportunities.
Reinvent and Revitalize what we do to meet the challenges of this remarkably unpredictable time.

Every Monday in this Bulletin we will overview for you our plans moving forward. If you would like to learn more I encourage you to reach out to the co-leads of the work groups or to your Vice Chancellor.

Here is a current list of participants:

Campus CORE: Chancellor Benham, VC Moniz, VC Ishida, iVC Javinar, Linda Saiki, Sheri Ching, Nancy Nakasone, Leila Shimokawa, Tom Hirsbrunner, Bev Baligad

Infrastructure

Facilities, IT, Safety & Sanitation, Equip & Supplies	Student & Academic Services	Multi-Modalities/T&L
Co-Leads Bonnie Arakawa Therese Nakadomari Loea Akiona Princess Soares Chris Neves	Co-Leads Alan Rosenfeld Loke Kenolio Walter Kahumoku	Co-Leads Dr. Gloria Niles Kaʻiulani Akamine John Ly Kristina Lu Melissa Saul
Members John Murakami Tom Hirsbrunner Ryan Perreira Michiko Joseph Carlton Ho James Shattuck Terri Ota ByungJu Lim Cherl Kina Lori Foo Kekoa Simpson	Members Michael Furuto Princess Soares Sharla Hanaoka Keʻalohi Perry Steven Taketa Sydney Millerd Robyn Tasaka Mary Heller Carina Chernisky	Members Matthew Chapman Lynette Williamson Monique Mironesco Rebecca Carino Nicolas Mitchell Kyra Takeuchi Brynn Manuel Louis Herman Stan Orr

Here is a quick overview of what the work groups are currently working on or discussing:

Facilities, IT, Safety & Sanitation, Equip & Supplies

Classroom mapping complete that provides “appropriate 6ʻ distancing” capacity
Deep cleaning of all classroom spaces
Classroom IT Inventory complete and currently in process to procure equipment to prepare all classrooms to more fully access online teaching modalities.
Purchase of plexi-glass sneeze guard shields for our public areas, e.g., library, student affairs, computer labs. Installing soon.
Current discussion regarding sanitation protocols and safety protocols.
Current discussion about office spaces and other spaces on campus.
Current discussion on scheduling space usage.
Current discussion on staffing configurations and repopulation to campus.

Student & Academic Services

Current Action Steps:

Recruitment, Admissions and Placement
Scheduling for Fall 2020 & Targeted/Non-Targeted Course Review

Discussing the following topics:

Second Session Summer Pilot HyFlex courses and Summer Bridges
Review of courses/faculty who can move class to fully online, HyFlex, or must be on-campus

Working with multi-modality on:

Enhance PD for faculty and staff on online teaching
Hiring and training student instructional assistants (IT strengths)

Multi-Modalities/T&L

Common terminology for course modes of delivery
- Ensure that terminology used across the UH System is consistent when referring to multiple modes of delivery
Technology to support new modalities for teaching online and face-2-face simultaneously
- Recommend monitors for each classroom (estimated $44,000 if monitors are on stands. additional cost if monitors are mounted in the room)
- Recommend iPads for students in person to collaborate and communicate with students connecting through video conferencing
Instructional Teaching Assistants
- Hire and train student employees to assist instructors in classes to support technology and help manage technology challenges students or instructors may experience during class sessions
- Instructional Assistants can also support faculty with helping to remediate existing documents to being ADA compliant.
Professional Development for Faculty
- Summer training for developing online courses, teaching online and in-person simultaneously, and designing “HyFlex” courses where students have the flexibility to determine how they attend class (in person or online).
- Web-based resources for asynchronous professional development, online summer training sessions, 1:1 support for instructional design over the summer
Student Support for Online Learning
- Work with Noʻeau Center to determine preparedness for increased online tutoring
- Support the development of online resources for student support with online learning (We hope to have results from the Remote Online Learning – Spring 2020 Survey of Students to inform the task force about the needs of students

Mahalo nūnui to your work groups and to all our faculty and staff who have contributed to this effort!

E mālama pono!
Chancellor Benham and CORE Committee