College offers options
Due to pandemic, San Jac students can choose ‘online anytime,’ ‘online on a schedule,’ hands-on hybrid or a flex campus approach
Like many incoming college freshmen, Lorie Herrera is a bit nervous about what to expect when school starts in the fall.
Those newbie jitters are coupled with going to school during a pandemic when many or all of her freshman classes at San Jacinto College will be online.
“It’s a little scary. I’m rolling with it,” said Herrera, 18, a recent graduate of Sam Rayburn High School in Pasadena Independent School District.
College administrators understand Herrera’s worries and are realistic about the situation surrounding COVID-19, which has been surging in the region. Consequently, they’ve developed four return-to-school learning models with those concerns in mind.
San Jacinto expects an enrollment of about 45,000 for the fall semester across its facilities, which include the main campus in Pasadena and the South Campus in South Belt. Students will be offered the options of “online anytime” and “online on a schedule.”
For those classes meeting online on a schedule, students would log in at the designated class time, hear their instructor’s lecture and complete all work remotely. The “online anytime” option allows students to view recorded lectures and other instructional materials and complete their work as it suits their personal schedule.
The college’s third option is what it calls “hands-on hybrid,” which caters to students in technical and applied-skill courses. These classes will use both online and in-class instruction where, when they are together, students and teachers will wear masks and practice social distancing as much as possible.
Finally, the school is offering a “flex campus” option in which students do some work online, and at other times meet in small groups with instructors at a designated time.
Laurel Williamson, San Jacinto’s deputy chancellor and college president, said presenting students with multiple options for instruction was the only feasible way to start the fall semester.
“Under current COVID-19 guidelines and sanitization (requirements), it just simply was not possible to try to bring back face-to-face classes in the way we’d done in the past,” she said.
With enrollment currently underway and plans available for students to view and consider, college leadership will be watching to see which options students choose.
In anticipation of which learning models most students might take, the college offered the online-on-a-schedule option for approximately 60 percent of its courses, particularly general education classes like math, English and government.
“We think that format is going to be very popular,” Williamson said. “It gives you a little face-toface flavor (with the instructor) and still feels like a class you might have at 9 a.m.”
Approximately 35 percent of San Jacinto’s classes will be offered in the online-anytime format, and 8 percent to 10 percent of classes will feature the handson hybrid model. As for the flexclassroom option, Williamson said the school is taking a waitand-see approach.
“We are being very careful about what classes are offered in that model,” she said. “We will wait to see the student demand for that. We know many people are nervous about coming back into crowds.”
Williamson said being flexible is the name of the game for San Jac as it moves through the fall semester.
“We will watch to see how students sign up, and if we need to shift a little bit in our learning format and class options, then we’ll do that,” she said.