College classes will be available online Monday

By JEREMY APPEL on March 20, 2020.

jappel@medicinehatnews.com@MHNJeremyAppel

Online classes at Medicine Hat College are set to start Monday.

In the meantime, MHC is continuing to place restrictions on campus activity to combat the spread of COVID-19, although certain amenities remain available.

“Our faculty have been putting a lot of work into making this transition. Some of the tools were available, because we do have ongoing access to a system called ‘Blackboard’ for online education,” director community relations Mark Kellar told the News.

“They’ve just been finding tools and mechanisms to make this shift to make sure we can get our students to the end of semester, and achieve their goals after that.”

Since the trades are by definition more hands-on, they have been cancelled until at least the end of June, as per the province’s direction.

“When you think of the campus activity for an apprentice when they’re here learning, it requires a lot of face-to-face, person-to-person work, whether that’s welding, working on a car or truck, or any of the other practical components of what an apprentice does at school,” said Keller. “It makes it incredibly difficult to transition to a different format.”

Residences are still open, but the college is encouraging students who can go elsewhere for social distancing to do so.

“There may be students who quite literally can’t go home, because they have to cross a border or there’s a cancelled flight, so it’s difficult to imagine closing residence without providing a solution for those students,” Keller said.

He says those solutions will vary based on a student’s particular needs.

MHC’s library remains open, while access to Medicine Hat and Brooks campuses, as well as the Cultural Centre, is restricted to a single entrance for each.

“The province has said to the community at large that they are to close their libraries. What we have is a library that is a service to students and we’ve been asked to maintain services to students,” says Keller. “We’re finding different ways of providing access to student services without maintaining face-to-face, because that’s something that’s unadvisable, as well know.”

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