Cabrillo Shifts to Classes in Person, Mandates Vaccine

COMMUNITY NEWS Cabrillo Shifts to Classes in Person, Mandates Vaccine

On June 7, Cabrillo College announced that more than half the courses this fall will feature face-toface or hybrid instruction.

A listing of those classes will be posted on the www.Cabrillo.edu website starting June 15.

In another major change, Cabrillo is mandating COVID-19 vaccinations for all students, faculty and staff who come to campus. Those with religious objections or health reasons for not obtaining a vaccination will have an opportunity to pursue an exemption but will be required to routinely provide negative COVID test results to be on campus.

Registration for the fall is underway and students are encouraged to check their email and the college website after June 15 for class changes and new sections providing face-to-face instruction. Online classes and services will continue but inperson classes and services will greatly expand.

“We are making this shift to serve our community,” said Cabrillo President and Superintendent Matt Wetstein. “One of the things we learned during the pandemic is that some of our students like the flexibility of online learning. But we also heard loud and clear that some of our students miss the structured learning and social interaction that takes place on campus. They miss interacting with each other and the payoff that they get from the broader college experience of direct engagement with faculty, on-campus student support services, and being a part of peer study groups.”

Cabrillo officials anticipate making a full return to in-person instruction and services by spring semester 2022.

Staff and faculty will return to oncampus offices on Aug. 16.

The Aptos campus Welcome Center will reopen for student access, registration, and financial aid questions in early August.

Several in-person services opened at Cabrillo’s Watsonville Center during spring and will continue throughout the summer and into fall including El Patio, the Watsonville outdoor study space that features in-person tutoring for math, writing and chemistry, express academic counseling, library services, graphing calculator checkouts for the summer, a food pantry, and free printing.

College staff and faculty are working to shift some sections that were planned for online learning to in-person sections or hybrid sections. The goal is to move the class schedule from about 25% face-toface offerings to 50% to 60% face-to-face sections for the fall. Popular transferable, general education offerings are being targeted for the change.

Several factors are driving the movement back toward in-person service. One key factor is the high vaccination rate in Santa Cruz County, with more than 50% of residents 18 and up vaccinated as of June 1.