RESPONSE TO COVID-19 On March 18, Butler officially closed all locations to the public due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States.
IT MOBILIZATION In order to teach and learn online, technology must be in place first and that means computers. Bill Young, vice president of digital transformation, has a staff of IT professionals who worked diligently for two weeks during spring week to outfit laptops for instructors to take home for teaching classes. His staff worked around the clock—literally. “They stayed one night until 4:00 a.m. configuring laptops,” said Young. “We repurposed laptops from across the institution, taking them from physical classrooms and computer labs so that we could have them accessible for faculty. We had more than 760 laptops ready for implementation and some of those were made available to staff as well since all employees worked remotely for the time being. Essentially, we mobilized the entire institution in a week and a half.”
ONLINE LEARNING College leadership made the difficult decision to move all instruction online for the safety of its students, faculty, and staff out of concern for public health.
“Butler has offered a robust online delivery system for more than 20 years and now we are leaning heavily on those resources during this time of greater need,” said Dr. Kimberly Krull, Butler president. “Though we are working remotely, we are encouraging teamwork and collaboration as we seek solutions to various learning needs.” Butler’s Educational Technology department is feeling part of the weight. Though the department’s title has changed more than once since 1998 when Butler offered its first online class, the mission has remained the same - to support faculty behind the scenes as they prep courses for online delivery. Often their services are also utilized by students who need technical assistance. Likewise, the Faculty Development department has a history of helping faculty innovate and integrate new technologies into their teaching process. They work to grow faculty professionally and strive to create stronger teaching and learning environments in the classroom. Faculty Development regularly provides workshops and weekend training for faculty. This grows into faculty training faculty. Fortunately, online pedagogy has been a recent focus of faculty development and the timing couldn’t have been better. Peer-to-peer instruction is paying off. In this time of heavy lifting for online delivery, nearly 100 Butler faculty came to the front lines willing and equipped to help others who have not taught online at all, or perhaps have had limited exposure.
6 | BUTLER COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION
