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VERVE (A5)
NEWS (A1 & A3)
Local organizations make homemade hand sanitizer
VERMILLION T-SHIRTS REPRESENT AND SUPPORT LOCAL COMMUNIT Y
PAGE A5 The USD Chemistry Department, along with Vermillion’s local winery are making their own hand sanitizer available to the USD and Vermillion communities. Read more about this response to COVID-19 on A5.
SPORTS (A6)
COVID-19 steals Coyote softball team’s season
PAGE A6 The Softball team’s two seniors reflect on their senior season being cut short due to COVID-19 and their time as Coyotes. Read more in Sports on A6.
USD classes remain online through the summer term Lexi Kerzman
Lexi.Kerzman@coyotes.usd.edu
On Monday in a press release, USD announced summer classes will remain online for all South Dakota public institutions. USD’s announcement came after the South Dakota Board of Regents decision was announced the same day. This decision, according to the press release, is in response to South Dakota’s continued effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19. As of now, universities are preparing for students to return to campus for in-person learning for the Fall 2020 semester. According to the press release, the university is anticipating students’ arrival, but as the situation evolves, they will continue to monitor it. Summer classes begin on May 18 and conclude Aug. 7. Continuing online learning, according to the press release, is in effort to slow the spread of COVID-19. USD Provost Kurt Hackemer said in the press release, USD’s priority is to continue providing courses for all USD students. “We are grateful to our excellent faculty members who have transitioned courses to remote delivery, which allows our students to continue progress toward graduation during this uncertain time,” Hackemer said. The Volante will continue to update this story as more information becomes available.
Submitted Photo | The Volante
Skye Hannasch, a senior criminal justice major, works for University Tees, a company that produces shirts to benefit college towns. This design is featured on the back of the Vermillion shirts.
Lexi Kerzman
Lexi.Kerzman@coyotes.usd.edu
Submitted Photo | The Volante
The front of the sweatshirt available to benefit Vermillion.
When USD students left for spring break, they thought they were leaving for a week. Now, four weeks later, students like Skye Hannasch are wishing they were back in Vermillion. Hannasch, a senior criminal justice major, has worked for the company University Tees for the last year. Through this company, she designed a T-shirt representing downtown Vermillion for students and community members to buy. The shirts and sweatshirts feature a variety of bars and restaurants on the back. Hannasch said she has received both positive and negative responses for the shirt design.
Faculty face remote learning challenges Jacob Forster
Jacob.R.Forster@coyotes.usd.edu
The sudden shift to remote learning has caused some growing pains for USD faculty, who tried to make the transition as smooth as possible for professors and students. Eric Mosterd, assistant director of the Center for Technology and Learning (CTL), worked with a team who played a key part in moving USD courses online. Mosterd said the strategies for responding to COVID-19 were guided by planning done to address a potential H1N1 outbreak in 2009. “We never needed to implement those contingencies,” Mosterd said. “But they have been very useful in guiding our COVID-19 strategy.” The biggest challenge, Mosterd said, in implementing remote learning was the scale. In a week, the CTL had to identify which of 3,500 course sections could be conducted remotely, how this would happen and how USD could support the efforts. Mosterd said USD was uniquely positioned to address this. “Leadership at the USD Sanford School of Medicine were actively engaged early on as advisers,” Mosterd said. “They were quick to recognize that COVID-19 was not going to be a short-term issue, so we quickly began working on long-term strategies.” The university-wide use of the learning
management system D2L for all 100- and 200- level courses meant the majority of faculty only had to expand what they were doing in D2L, Mosterd said. Along with this came a shift in how the CTL provided instructional support. All face-to-face training had to be delivered remotely within one week, which was accomplished through Zoom instructor support office hours, Google Drive management of training materials and Slack for office communication and coordination. “Throughout all of this, the university’s primary focus was to do what was best for the students,” Mosterd said. “Despite the obvious disruption and the short turnaround, deans, chairs and faculty fully embraced remote instruction.” Some professors and deans even posted videos of their preparations for remote learning on social media. Since every university in the United States has gone through the same situation, Mosterd says that there will be a wealth of resources for USD to tap into preparing for any future pandemic contingency plans. “The most important thing we can do as an institution is to learn from the situation, adapt our strategies accordingly and be as prepared as possible for the future,” Mosterd said.
“My supervisor and artist made the last call and that has brought a few issues because Silk Road, and OLC and Leo’s — even though they’re not on Main Street — are not on there,” Hannasch said. “Unfortunately, I didn’t get the final call ... and we can’t make revisions now.” Through University Tees, Hannasch has designed shirts for social events in the past. She said she simply pitches concepts for the shirts to the teams’ designers and supervisors and it’s her job to promote them. She did the same thing with these designs and said she wishes all downtown businesses were featured on the shirts. “In the future, if we decide to do the shirt like this every year and donate the sales … See SHIRTS, Page A3
Student Government
President and VP reflect on term Nik Wilson
Nikolas.Wilson@coyotes.usd.edu
For Student Government Association President Carson Zubke and Vice President Hannah Booth, their term was a learning experience. While Zubke and Booth saw the creation of Charlie’s Cupboard and the approval of an SGA donation to the Patriots Plaza throughout their term, they said learned quickly not every project is easy. One of the first goals Zubke and Booth pursued was making college transcripts free for students. “We didn’t realize how many people and things that actually took to get that done, so that ended up not actually happening, but we did try and work on it at the beginning of our term,” Booth said.
Throughout the year, Booth said, she learned to not get discouraged by setbacks. “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Booth said. “The learning curve right away is definitely substantial and I guess going back now, I would tell myself that you need to take a lot more deep breaths.” The duties that come with SGA sometimes took priority over personal relationships, Zubke said. “Looking back, I really wish I would’ve told myself to take some more time just to have fun and enjoy the experience,” Zubke said. Zubke also said the experience taught him about the power of a simple conversation. “The first step should always be just to talk to somebody in See PRESIDENT, Page A3