Spring semester begins at Butte College
OROVILLE » As the spring semester began for Butte College on Monday, virtual learning continued for a majority of students attending the school.
However since the shift to distance-learning in 2020, Butte has begun to open up in-person learning for several programs around its campus.
There are 142 sections that will offer some type of face-to-face learning between the departments of agriculture, auto, welding, administration of justice law enforcement academy, fish and wildlife academy, state parks academy, EMT, paramedic, fire science-firefighter academy, heating ventilation air conditioning refrigeration and manufacturing, said Butte College Director of Institutional Advancement Lisa DeLaby.
Still, Butte College Vice President of Institutional Effectiveness Gregory Stoup said that as of Monday, Butte’s 2021 full-time enrollment is down about 13 percent, or roughly 450 students. Stoup said in an email that administrators have seen the biggest source of decline in enrollment coming from recent high school graduates who have chosen to delay college enrollment due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
For students in-person, class sizes were limited and classrooms had a much smaller maximum occupancy than in semesters prior, with signs posted outside each room. Students were required to wear face masks for the entire duration of their classes, and some students choosing to wear face shields in addition to the masks. Professors
were allowed to remove masks when they were in front of students lecturing if a face shield was being worn.
Students in Professor Donna Davis’ concepts in respiratory care and respiratory therapy class were on campus Monday as Davis explained the course syllabus and plan for the semester.
As a respiratory therapist of 35 years, Davis said that one positive thing COVID-19 has done for her profession as a whole is help put the career in the news more prevalently.
“We’re basically the experts of the lungs. We’re the ones that help patients oxygenate, ventilate,” Davis said. “If you can’t oxygenate and ventilate you don’t live. We’re very essential to peoples’ survival and to their well being over the course of time as well.”
Davis said many of her students enroll in the program because they themselves have had respiratory issues or have had family who have experience similar experiences in their
childhood.
With a majority of COVID-19 hospitalizations being respiratory related, combined with students witnessing California fires first-hand and the respiratory problems that followed survivors, Davis wants people to know how important those in the respiratory therapy field are right now.
For some students, like Chad Shook, the recent news of how prevalent respiratory therapists working in the medical field are right now has nothing to do with why he is in the program.
“It just confirms that this is what I want to do,” Shook said. “Its not like that whole patriotism thing like I’m going to sign up and go. It wasn’t that at all, it was just this is what I want to do and I’m going to do it. And now look, I’m needed, so its a little bit more gratifying.”
Shook is an older student who said he was stagnant in a retail job and got the opportunity to re-chase the dream he once had of being
a doctor or in the medical field. Zoom was a challenge at first, but he said the limited in person classes have helped with interactions and forming relationships better with both classmates and professors.
“I got in and I wasn’t going to let this opportunity slide; it couldn’t have mattered what,” Shook said. “Even if it was all online — which it’s not, which is super great — total thank you. This is what I had, and I was going to seize it.”
Despite the surge in respiratory-related illnesses, Davis said that Butte College has still seen a drop in both nursing and respiratory therapy applications. Applications are open until March 1 for students looking to join a program in the fall semester. To learn more about the respiratory therapy program at the college visit https://programs.butte. edu/ProgramInfo/10/2209.