Finishing strong and moving forward
Greetings from Valley City State University!
As we near the end of the academic semester, preparations are underway for online celebrations of academic and athletic achievements. Our virtual commencement ceremony will be broadcast on the university’s YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/user/VCSUVikings on Saturday morning, May 16, at 10 a.m. I invite you to join us as we celebrate our 2020 graduates.
As you know, all courses at VCSU have been delivered online since spring break. Despite the challenges, the feedback has been largely positive, and our faculty and student success team have been hard at work helping students through this unanticipated twist to the semester.
Although the move to online delivery has been adopted by almost all colleges and universities across the country, VCSU enjoys a unique position that allows us to provide exceptional online instruction. As a laptop university, all of our students have an exceptional computer with tremendous (and similar if not uniform) software platforms in their hands. Coupling that with strong technology support infrastructure and personnel, along with talented and skilled faculty and staff, provides us with distinct advantages in navigating the switch to online with strength and confidence. And let’s not forget our experience with the 2009 flood, when all courses went online after Easter break. We know how to do this well.
Our continued focus on the health and safety of our students, faculty, and staff has resulted in a few schedule changes for our campus. All summer events and camps, including the STEM Middle School Academy and our athletic camps, have been postponed until at least July 1. In addition, our first session summer school courses will be delivered online.
I’m very pleased to announce our intention to return to an open campus with face-to-face instruction in the fall, moving toward normal operations as much as possible. Our Cabinet and the other members of our Emergency Management Team will be working diligently as we plan for a restart that places the safety of our community members as our top priority. We realize things may change in the months ahead, but we’ll continue to plan carefully and pragmatically as we move forward.
I wish to thank the entire Valley City community for the support, cooperation and collaboration we continue to enjoy. We’re in this together, and I know that we all look forward to the positive energy and excitement that our students will bring back to our beautiful campus and this tremendous city.
Go Vikings!