Mary Rees: Good afternoon.
Good afternoon and welcome to the Moorpark College Campus Update for October 18. We'll wait just a minute or two while we have people joining us.
Good afternoon. We're going to wait just another minute or two while we have people joining us for the Moorpark College Campus Update for today.
Well, good afternoon, welcome to the Moorpark College Campus Update for October 18. Just wanting to remind everyone that this update is being recorded and will be posted on the president's web
page. Also that the update is captioned. If you're interested in seeing it closed captioned, please just click the CC at the bottom of your screen.
It's just like fall today, right? We are really ready and going for the fall semester. We've got
a lot of information to go through with everyone today. Today's agenda includes an update on Board Policy 3506, on the vaccine requirements for employees and for students.
Going over our COVID dashboard. Going over the medical and the religious exemptions for the COVID vaccine. A update from our Business Services, and an update from Student Services and Academic Affairs. So good afternoon Julius.
Julius Sokenu: Good afternoon Mary. Hi everyone, thank you for joining us this afternoon. It's a pleasure to be here once again. I'm wanting to make sure that we start off by taking a deep breath. So if you could just go ahead and take a deep breath alongside with me, I'd appreciate that.
Let it out. Let it out. So we're making progress, as we move along in the process
as we accommodate the pandemic and
all of the untangling
situations. So faculty and staff received drafts of the tentative agreement
with both the SEIU and the AFT. That tentative agreement goes into effect right away. So as of last Friday when you received that, the agreement went into effect.
For classified professionals and for non-instructional faculty it offers the opportunity for one to two days of remote work a week and that requires that the staff person,
the employee initiates the request for this. And it's important to note that for employees that are
utilizing this opportunity, please make sure you complete the telework agreement form
have it reviewed and approved by your supervisor. The supervisor then sends that to the vice president who reviews it and then an automated approval is at the office of the college president.
Again this is to last us for the rest of the fall semester. In terms of the vaccine requirements for students and employees it's important that it's noted,
that verified and vaccinated students can access the campus without a COVID-19 testing.
Unverified unvaccinated students need to complete twice weekly COVID-19 testing and this testing option is available for fall 2021 only.
Fall 2021 only. There is no extensions to testing. So if you are an individual who is required to test, please make sure you do so.
We have a week of grace period to get all the paperwork and the processes together, but take this as the week to get your tests in place, so that you will have two test completed this week
in preparation for next week. Employees, as I said the MOUs have been signed. Verified vaccinated employees can access campus
without COVID testing. Again, screening. Using your screening app and coming onto campus with that already in place.
Unverified unvaccinated employees need to complete twice with retesting. They also need to utilize the screening app
prior to coming to campus and twice weekly testing options for fall 2021 only. I want to use the opportunity to thank those who helped to develop and curate and present,
and attend the Latinx Heritage Month events. Phenomenal opportunity for our campus, not only to learn about our Latinx, Hispanic, Latino Community, but also an opportunity for us to celebrate
the cultures that make up this campus community. So I appreciate the work that was done by the Multicultural Day Committee.
I thank that group of folks who've diligently provided us with outstanding work and outstanding opportunities to dialogue, to celebrate, and and for those of you who had the opportunity of attending either in HyFlex or in person
Arturo Sandoval's
both presentation last Friday. That is the kind of conversation, that kind of community engagement that we aspire to each of these
multicultural celebrations. So the next celebration will be our Native American History Month and that comes up sooner than we would think. And so kudos to those who are working on that and we look to hear about more from them about that set of offerings. Next slide please?
Okay, so this is my time to turn it to Allison. Allison take it away.
Mary: Julius, first there were a couple of questions, maybe as far as where do people get the telework agreement form.
Julius: Okay, so the telework agreement form is available online through HR. If you go onto the HR website, it is there.
We can also send out a copy of that to the campus community. So we can ask Linda to send that out to the rest of the college, so that folks have access to it, but it is available through HR.
[Mary]: Thank you. [Julius]: Sure.
Allison Barton: All right, well good afternoon everyone. This is this week's latest information and again, a really good week for
limited COVID exposure on our campus. We can see that there's one active case and one known exposure to bring us up to two students in quarantine currently. We can see that we've had a total of 28
cases on our campus since the semester began, and then 93 total since last September. So well over a year. The other thing I wanted to point out is that, though this says 4,778 vaccines,
since the 16th, we this morning, verified another 37 that weren't in the pendings. And then we have a lot more pendings too. So we have been busy
verifying vaccines as quickly as we can and as quickly as they come in. Just a little additional note that
a lot of times people upload their cards after their second dose, for example, and that doesn't mean it's verifiable yet. There's a two week waiting period. So if you're wondering why
you still haven't gotten that blue pass, it's because the time limit has not been up. So just be aware of that. Next slide please?
Alright, so say you want to upload your vaccination card. So on that app,
if you slide over to the left a little bit, you'll see this report vaccinations tile and you just click on that, and follow the instructions.
And then, if you haven't finished your two dose series, like the Pfizer two dose series or the Moderna one,
it'll thank you for uploading it and then it'll ask you to upload when you have the full card, you know, if you say no on that. So just be aware of that.
And then you're just going to add a photo of it. So you'll either want to have a photo on your phone or have your card handy to photograph it. Next slide please?
Great. So because we now have this mandate in place and we have a testing requirement for those with an exemption and then we have
the testing option for folks that are not verified vaccinated yet, we now have Lab LINQ. They are in the south east corner of the parking garage and they are ready to help you. They'll be doing
PCR testing there, and they'll also be registering you. In order to use Lab LINQ you need to pre-register. And there's I think a link. I think Michael's putting it, yeah. So Michael's putting up links
for not only uploading vaccinations, but also how to pre-register with Lab LINQ. Also information was sent out to everybody
all employees and students on Friday with those links too. So in any case, in order to get on campus starting next week, because this week remember we're in our grace period, so this week you have this whole week to get two tests done and uploaded into the app.
And remember, they need to be uploaded by Sunday at noon, in order to be ready to go for any Monday classes or Monday, just coming onto campus on Monday early in the morning.
So that's an important piece of information for everybody to have. Their turnaround time in the past, they've been used by Ventura College and usually they're pretty fast. It's about a 24 to 36 hour turnaround, depending on the time of day that you did your test.
We don't know if it's going to continue to be that fast. So the good strategy then would be to upload early in the week, if possible. Students can actually upload or they could actually get tested
two days in a row, if they wanted to. For employees it can be as as quickly as every other day. So you can't do two tests in a row, but you could like do a Monday Wednesday or Tuesday Thursday.
And I would suggest that you get that done as early in the week as possible, so that you have plenty of time for result turnaround and that you have plenty of time to upload by Sunday at noon, so that you're ready to go on the 25th of October.
They're very nice. It's a quick process and it's it's easy to do. They will be on campus this whole week from 9:00 to 4:00, Monday through Friday. And then we'll send you what the...
I'm sorry I didn't even notice on this slide it's 9:00 to 4:00 not 8:00 to 5:00. I'm so sorry about that.
But next week we'll have slightly different hours and we'll be able to send that information out to everybody
in plenty of time to plan ahead. Alright next slide please? So we also have COVID clinics on campus. They can also do PCR tests that qualify.
And they also require pre-registration, you can do that registration on site, just like you can with
Lab LINQ, but we added Lab LINQ, because there's a lot more people now on campus that need to be tested. So they do the same kind of testing.
It's a slower turnaround. I've heard 48 to 72 hours. So just be aware of that, if you use COVID clinics that there might be a slightly longer turnaround time. So you just need to plan ahead for that.
Okay next slide?
Alright, so upload test results on your smartphone, you just slide over a little bit to the left until you get this orange tile that says report test results and then it's the same process as uploading a vaccination card.
You have to give us a good phone number to contact you at, especially if it's a positive test, we definitely need to reach you.
Negative tests too, because if we can't read the, sometimes the image is blurry or something like that, you can't read it.
A note about the COVID results, it's really important that it be a PCR test that the test result itself that you're uploading, has your full name, your date of birth,
the date that the test was done, right, and the results. So we need to have all of that information on there or we can't accept it. So a lot of people
have tried to upload home tests in the past, but the ones that you just go buy at the drugstore they don't have your personal information on them, except for the test result, and we can't accept those we need to be able to attach a result to a person.
Okay. Next slide please?
Alright, so starting next week, a company called PubSEG will be
monitoring the twice a week testing for folks. They're going to be for both employees and students. And then, if you haven't uploaded two tests that I just described in the way I just described them by noon on Sunday, your pass will be orange for the following week. Now,
if you actually have two tests that follow all the parameters I've already mentioned, if you already have those and you just didn't get them uploaded up in time or whatever it is, the Student Health Center and or PubSEG can help
make sure that we can verify those tests and then we can get you that green pass that you need to get on campus starting next week. Again this week orange passes are fine, this is just
kind of a week of grace for everyone to
figure out the system, figure out what you need to do, help you get pointed in the right direction, but next week you'll need a green pass or a blue pass to get on campus.
And also just know that if you upload a positive test, that the Student Health Center is notified by the app,
not PubSEG, but we will know right away from the app, that that has happened. And then we can work with you, just as we always have since last September, since over a year ago. That that part hasn't changed at all. So PubSEG is just going to be monitoring
the uploading of the twice weekly tests and flipping passes back and forth, alright? So that's an important thing for people to understand. Alright, next slide please?
So we just wanted to make sure you knew what all the new passes would look like. So there's a blue pass that hasn't changed at all. There's a red pass that hasn't changed at all, either. That means that you're symptomatic
for COVID-19. You've said that you were symptomatic. It also could mean that you said that you've been exposed to somebody in the last 14 days with COVID-19,
or that you've uploaded a positive COVID-19 test. All of those things flip it automatically to red.
Nobody has anything to do with that. That just automatically flips to red. So and in that case that requires an interaction with the Student Health Center to
look into what's going on, and then to advise you. So we have licensed medical professionals in the Student Health Center to help you with that. So there are actually two orange passes.
One says exempt on it and one says pending vaccination verification. Any orange past from
actually the 25th on, any orange pass means you can't come on campus, until we have a cleared testing for you, right? So orange passes require testing, whether you're exempt or not. So you filed an
exemption request and he had has been okayed, you're going to have to get tested every twice every week and then this this will pop up automatically if you haven't submitted two tests.
The pending vaccination verification, the minute your
vaccine can be verified, we'll change you to a blue pass and then you won't have to worry about testing anymore. Once you get verified vaccinated, no more testing unless you get sick.
That's a different story, but in general, that's the situation. And then the green passes now are for either people that have been tested twice in the previous week or they're exempt.
Many exemptions do have to, if you have a temporary pass, temporary exemption
because you are positive for COVID or you've had COVID illness in a certain period of time, those
folks also will get a green pass and they won't have to test for that very tiny number of people, but in general, starting the 25th, you have to have a green or blue
to get on campus just like always, that hasn't changed at all. Green or blue to come on campus. Orange will mean no coming on campus. Red will mean no coming on campus. So next slide please?
Alright, so this is the medical vaccine exemption process for students. Next slide please?
Alright, so medical exemptions, students and employees may decline vaccination due to medical contraindications or precautions recognized by the US Food and Drug Administration and the CDC,
or due to disability, and that includes mental health disabilities. So what are the three reasons for medical contraindications or precautions? So we've said before allergy to COVID-19 components and you would have to be allergic to something in all three
vaccines.
Current COVID_19 infection. You gotta wait at least 10 days
to to be able to get vaccinated after that or anaphylactic reaction to a prior COVID-19 vaccine. And then, as we said, you need to have a medical provider. There are
very few other little conditions that might preclude you from getting a vaccine. You'd have to have a physician
write to those conditions and send us that information in fully filled out forms and would review and
make a recommendation one way or another, depending on the review. And again, these these exemptions are reviewed by all three campuses, medical professionals on all three campuses. So it's not just me sitting in my office deciding, it's
a whole bunch of good brains working on it all at the same time. Alright next?
All right, excuse me so,
in order to do this, remember, so the documentation is available on our website, the Student Health Center website or it's available on the district COVID-19 website.
You have to complete all of the waiver forms. So there's one for the student or employee, and then there are two
that the medical provider would complete. They need to be complete and we're asking for the physician's stamp, because that tells us it's a practice,
a current practice. It helps us not have to research quite so much who the physician is. We've had unfortunately
some of these come in that haven't been legitimate so now we have to really verify that they're legitimate forms.
They go to the Student Health Center either by snail mail, you can send them to us, or you could deliver them in person or you could email them to
our email address mcshc@vcccd.edu. And again, all of three
health centers work together to determine approval or denial. Alright next slide please?
All right, over to Jennifer and
Monica.
Mary: Allison could we go through some of the questions before we go on to Jennifer and Monica? Would you mind Monica?
Allison there was a question about whether the tests are nasal tests or whether they are saliva tests.
Allison: Sorry, I was muted. They're nasal tests on campus.
There are saliva tests available. We don't provide those on our campus, though. So both COVID clinics and LabLINQ do a nasal test.
And then do you want me to go through the questions too?
Mary: No I'll just ask you,
I think, ones that we were not able to do.
Allison: Okay.
Mary: What about the 90 days after an infection?
Would someone still be positive?
Allison: So 90 days after an infection somebody would still be positive, and that would be a temporary
exemption. Oh you mean, as far as testing goes. Yeah we just got an answer about that. So 90 days after, we're not asking for people
to test for 90 days after a positive test, like they've had a positive test, and I'm actually sending out emails about that this morning to the few people that have temporary exemptions for COVID illness. So they so they would not have to do the testing. It's a good question.
Mary: And the question about what type of tests can be uploaded and whether one can have to upload a photo or if you can...
Allison: So, an image is fine. Sometimes you'll get a an email or a text. So any of those are fine to upload.
They have to be a PCR test with the person's full name, their date of birth, and the result of the test. All of those pieces of information have to be on there or we can't accept it. So again, that's why you wouldn't want to use just go to CVS and buy a
COVID test, because there's no connection between those pieces of information and the result that we're seeing. [Mary]: Okay.
Mary: And if someone doesn't have a smartphone how do they upload the...
Allison: So Michael has already shared links on how to upload without a smartphone.
So they should be in the chat. If you have need for help, or you missed that, or it's not working for you, you can always call the Student Health Center. We help people every day do this.
Mary: Excellent. Thank you.
Mary: Thank you so much. There was one last question
that
talks about the whether provisionals, student workers, professional experts, do they have to meet the vaccine mandate.
Allison: My understanding of that is any new employees have to be vaccinated. And that would be a good question for HR to verify, but my understanding is new employees...
Mary: Very good, I think that's
as well. And the reason for the testing this semester is just as what Julius has presented before, it was in the middle of a semester so there's been some flexibility as far as allowing people to finish the semester, but not into the spring.
[Allison]: Yep. [Mary]: Okay very good. Thank you. Monica and Jennifer on to religious exemption.
Monica Garcia: Good afternoon everyone. I hope everyone is doing well and had a wonderful weekend.
So faculty. Thank you next slide? Thank you. Faculty, staff, and students can continue to request religious exemptions, if they wish to decline the vaccine.
Faculty and staff can send their request directly to our district HR. Students' request can continue to be submitted to our MC Division 128 email.
Students who would like to be considered for religious exemption must submit a request using our district forms.
And I believe we'll have our
link there for those who would like to submit or provide that to your students, that particular link to your students. And the forms that they're required to submit are the 1AS form and the 1BS form.
The 1CS form is now optional and it can serve as supplemental information for those who wish to submit that particular documentation.
In chat you'll see the or the religious exemption forms provided there, not just for our students, but also it's the link for
faculty and staff to to look for their forms, as well. As promised from last update, we have FAQs available for you to look at
and provide students information about. And you'll also see that link in our chat so if you have any questions about the religious exemption process or forms, you'll find information there.
I don't have anything else. Do we have any questions?
Nope. Okay, I think we can go ahead and move on to the next slide, if we don't have any questions about religious exemptions.
Mary: I'm sorry Monica. The question was have there been any accepted religious exemptions
provided.
Monica: Yes, there has been some religious exemptions provided.
Mary: Thank you.
And will there be religious exemptions for staff. I believe, those are handled by HR?
Monica: That's correct. Mhmm.
Mary: Then there was a question about someone who presented a religious exemption quite a while ago and haven't heard back, has there been a change in the process
for religious exemptions.
Monica: No, not so far.
Mary: So if they submitted one month ago, should they have heard from us already?
Monica: If they submitted one a month ago, they should have already heard. So if they still have not heard, they can go ahead and email,
and I would imagine that this is a student, if it's a student who they're referring to, then they can go ahead and email myself or Jennifer and we will give them an update.
Jennifer Clark: I know there were a few Monica that were a little bit older from September. I saw some dates in September that are going out today.
[Monica]: Okay. [Jennifer]: So I think after today we should be completely caught up
on the student ones.
As you said correctly, the employee ones are all handled by HR. I don't have any information on those.
Mary: Thank you.
Monica: Thank you Jennifer. I wasn't sure where we were.
No more questions?
Okay, then we'll go to the next slide. Thank you everyone.
Mary: There was a question,
Julius about,
or maybe it's for Allison,
if people are coming through screening and they don't have a cell phone,
what can they do to get the information on and to get their pass?
Allison: Thank you so much. I meant to mention that earlier. So
there will be devices on the tables, the screening tables for students and employees to use to do the screening on the web link, rather than doing it on a smartphone. You could also do it at home and then you could print out the pass you were then emailed, right,
and bring that in, or if you have your email on a smartphone and you just don't want to do those screening part of it on your phone, you could show that pass
that you were emailed to the screeners and you'll be able to get on. Or
you could do the whole thing. You could wait for your email at the screening table and then show that pass that you are emailed to the screeners. So they're all kind of like a hybrid system or you can do it all at the screening table.
Does that answer the question? I think. Probably? Okay.
Mary: I think so. So once it gets into the system,
Allison: Yeah.
Mary: would that be a blue pass for them coming in, and they can just use the hotspot, the chromebook at that point to show the blue pass? So if they don't have a cell phone.
Allison: And if you don't have a lot of time to spend at the screening tables, because it can take a varying amount of time to receive that email, you could print it out from home,
you could kind of do a little hybrid of it or come a little earlier or whatever it is for ya. So those are all the options available to you for that process.
[Mary]: Thank you. [Allison]: Yep.
Mary: On the next slide.
Julius: Next slide please?
Okay, so the district wide work group on remote work, that's a mouthful,
has been convened and I emailed the campus and shared that information with you last week. Representing our college is Linda Resendiz,
Dan McMichael,
Jodi Dickey, and Monica Garcia. And they will receive an email from me and Laura Barroso some time today just informing them that the group will be having it's first meeting in November.
And prior to that, the campus based remote work groups will be meeting and I know already one group has completed its discussion and they've made a set of recommendations.
The other groups, please do meet between now and the end of the month so that the first week of November, you can provide me your recommendations that you would like to have shared at the district wide venue.
It is important that we as a college articulate how we would like to see the future of work.
We are part of a three college district, so we put our voice, and what are our recommendations alongside the rest of the three sites,
the additional three sites. And our folks from this campus who are representing Moorpark College, their role is to support conversations on campus as well as articulate the campus position when we get to a district wide venue.
The library. Thank you Danielle and thank you other librarians for helping support us in this work. They're creating a SharePoint document and that will have some resources around the nature of work that you can refer to as you do this work in your groups.
Please do go ahead and send me the recommendations, no later than November 1, so that way, by the end of that week, by November 5, we will have recommendations from the college.
In terms of hiring for the fall of '21-'22, I going to talk about specifically about manager hiring first and foremost. We will
conduct the hiring for the Vice President for Academic Affairs position and that position, the recruitment will start sometime in November and go through the end of the year and in early to mid January close and then we'll do interviews come the spring.
The Vice President of Academic Affairs position will start with us
late June or early July. July 1, that is. We're also in the position of recruiting for our Director
of Institutional Advancement and Community Relations. We used to have a position of Director of Institutional Advancement Community Relations and Marketing.
The marketing piece has been moved to our IE division and it's not just institutional advancement community relations.
We should be having those candidates, it's a classified manager position, so we should be having those classified personnel on campus for interviews sometime in the next two to three weeks. And hopefully have the candidate join us before the semester is over.
Let's see what else.
Fall 2021 Town Hall reminder. We have a town hall once a semester, and this time around, next slide please, this time around we'll be focusing on the work that we continue to do on diversity, equity, and inclusion
as well as provide budget updates, particularly the extensions on the HEERF funds as well as our plans around our student centered funding formula
funding. So please mark your calendars. We appreciate you showing up. It will be a HyFlex event. And so you can join us in the Campus Center or you can join us online via Zoom, but it is on the 28th of October, I believe that's a Thursday from 2:30 to 4:00pm. Okay that's it for me.
Jennifer?
Jennifer: Good afternoon everybody. Happy to be here on this beautiful Monday afternoon. Next slide please? I just want to
remind everybody, you should have received an email last week announcing this. We will be having our first on campus drill in two years. So time to dust off, dust off our processes and remember what it is
to have an earthquake drill on campus. So this is just a quick itinerary will be on Thursday at 10:21am on October 21. This is an annual event, statewide.
And again, a great opportunity for us to practice safety on campus.
At 10:21 we will be testing our emergency notification system. The brand new one. So you will hear, you should hear over loud speakers, that this is a drill and that it will prompt you to drop and cover and hold for
approximately 15 to 30 seconds-ish is about how long the message is. So we encourage you at 10:21 to look around you, are you at a desk, are you in a classroom, where are you and look for best places to do that. There are some videos and
some kind of preparation documents that were sent out in the email last week that you might want to review again, to sort of dust off your memory how or
ideas for best places to sort of drop and cover, depending on wherever you may find yourself at the time.
A couple minutes later at 10:23 we are going to broadcast another message over the loudspeakers.
You'll also if you are in a classroom or you're in an office or you see in a hallway or whatever, where we have our new display boards that usually have the time,
it will also display the message that's coming across the loudspeakers and that will be an evacuation order. So we're simulating the shaking has stopped.
And we're trying to get everybody out of the building and familiar with your evacuation zone. So be advised that in that email that was sent out last week, another item that was attached was the campus map.
And on the campus map, the version that we sent out, it has the evacuation zones denoted on it,
as yellow pentagons, I believe. So there you go. Thank you so much, Michael. You're so good. So there you can see the yellow pentagons around campus. I encourage all of you
to think about, you know, "Where, am I going to be on Thursday morning?" It's not really authentic I know, an earthquake can happen at any time.
So it's good to just be familiar with where they are, but in general, they're wide open locations. You can see they're sort of quad areas, grassy areas, fields,
away from buildings, away from tall windows, things that can fall on you. Those are in general, where are evacuation zones are. So become familiar with that so you know where it is you'll be going at 10:23.
And then at 10:30, the final message you will hear is the all clear announcement. So you can go back to your buildings, your classrooms, your offices, whatever.
And be advised, it if you don't hear again, we're testing the system. So if something happens and maybe you don't hear it, for whatever reason,
once 10:30 comes, please know that the drill is over, and whether or not you hear the message or receive the text or get the emails, just please go back and
resume what you were doing prior to the drill. So I hope, we have our team behind the scenes. Super excited about the opportunity to test our system and
we'll be kind of surveying people afterwards to get some feedback. Again, it's a brand new system, and so we want to sort of shine it off and dust it off and try to make it as right for us and as useful for us as possible should a real emergency occur.
That is my update, unless there are any questions?
Mary: I didn't see any on the great shakeout. So I think that...hopefully, we'll be ready.
I want to just to remind people.
Sorry about that. Just focusing again, back on our business. Everyone here really is working, our single goal is supporting our students. Students first.
Helping our students move towards their educational goals. Completing their degrees, certificates, and coursework that will help them move forward with meeting their dreams.
So if we talk a little bit about this spring semester. This spring semester we're going to have about a third of our course offerings will be on ground.
About a third of our course offerings will be online, and about a third of our course offerings will be a mixture of hybrid or HyFlex. So
this is in response to our surveys of our students and as far as what they're looking for, because we want to meet our students where they're at and provide them with the
optimal educational opportunities to meet the flexibility, as well as their learning styles how they learn best. So we're working, all of us here on campus, that's our our single focus goal.
Providing these educational opportunities in a safe environment for all of our students. So that's the plan for spring. Spring schedule
is up. The students are being notified or have been notified of their prioritizations for registering for spring. Do encourage students to register for spring.
We have a wide variety of different opportunities for the students, as far as as I've mentioned, the different kinds of ways to offer many of these courses.
Not every course is offered online. Depends on the outcomes that have been defined by the faculty and that for those particular courses.
So do register for classes. Encourage the students, help them
figure out. If they are verified vaccinated they are welcome on campus. If they have a medical or religious exemption, they are welcome on campus as well. If they're not then they are absolutely welcomed in our online courses.
We're going to be having
groups working on trying to define what we have for a testing center on campus that could support some of the
online courses or the hybrid courses. So there's groups that are meeting to kind of to look into that. So if you have an interest in that, please let us know.
Tomorrow, the Academic Senate and deans will be meeting and going through our annual faculty prioritization process, which is one of the many different processes on campus to try to be as transparent as possible.
There are a lot of students service activities going on to try to help our students come back to campus and to help retain our students.
And I think I heard that Amanuel might be on our presentation today, and if he did make it to our update, we absolutely are welcome and delighted that he'll be back soon.
On the next slide?
I think we have hit most of the questions. The was again, asking where the testing centers are. There's testing centers in the parking structure and in the parking lot over by the observatory. The Student Health Center is a wonderful resource.
Julius, we've had a couple of questions about
how do we verify
if students have their bracelets, have come through all of our screening, and for faculty, staff, and students and whose responsibility is all of this.
Julius: Thank you so much for that question Mary. We are all responsible for the safety of the campus. At the end of the day, we are responsible to one another and so
I would say that clearly, students who go through the screening process. The screening process gives them the bracelet,
and everyone who walks through campus and sees the individual
and sees that they do not have a bracelet, you have the opportunity to ask them or to direct them to where the screening station is. If someone comes to your office and someone comes to your program and they don't have
their bracelet or their mask is on their chin, please, please, please provide them the right protocol. You can walk them to the screening station, you can direct them to the screening station, that is fantastic. We're all responsible for one another's safety.
If you feel uncomfortable doing that, I fully understand that,
but I ask that you bear in mind that you don't want a person walking around campus that hasn't gone through our process. So I ask that
extend yourself and again, it's being very polite, no demanding
language, just making sure you acknowledge the need for such. We have signs all across campus that you need to wear masks in our buildings. We have signs in many of our buildings
and we'll have more signs asking folks if they've gotten their wristband and they've gone through screening. Again, we're all responsible for one another's safety. Thank you.
Mary: Julius, would you mind just verifying again? So when we talk about the testing. We spent a lot of time talking about our testing processes, but our testing processes are for our faculty, staff, and students that are non verified, vaccinated just for this semester? Am I correct?
Julius: Yes that's true.
Julius: So we're not testing for visitors who come to the campus. We want them to use the screening app
and go through our screening process, but for many of these individuals, they're here for very short periods of time and that's why we enforce the mask wearing, that's why we enforce that they go through our screening process, so that we can have some validation of
their well being.
But again, the testing, is in the MOU [indiscernible audio] is for rest of the semester, we do not have an agreement for the spring semester. So we do not have
that testing option for faculty, staff, or students in the spring, unless they have exemptions. If they do have exemptions and the exemptions are a year in duration from what I remember, then those folks can test, based on their exemptions and approval of those exemptions.
Mary: Okay, you did mention that the exemptions are for a year. So it's for
this semester, and next semester.
Thank you.
Do you have any final comments related to spring or the town hall?
Julius: We've spent a lot of energy focused on COVID and rightfully so, but the college continues beyond COVID. There will be a Moorpark College long after COVID is just
something in our history books or it's just part of our everyday life at that point. So I hope that as we do our work,
that we continue to think of ways in which we can address our enrollment challenges. We are as a district, 20% down in enrollment. As a college, were about 10% down in enrollment.
And part of that is returning students, but some of that is also just folks who have not applied.
So we need to do more work around that enrollment. And we need to do more work around persistence and retention.
And we need to be consistently, consistently be available and open to our students as they need us. So that's clearly. We also need to consistently
do the work. We need to make sure that we're hiring faculty and staff or the we're bringing folks on campus, that we'll continue to do the work of our district master plan, the work of our student equity and
mass planning. We're doing the work of our annual plan. We will have a town hall this semester. We'll have another one next semester, but we'll also have a retreat
in the spring. And my hope is that it'll be an on ground retreat, so then we'll all be together.
And planning continues. The college continues to yearn and grow. And part of that work is the energy that you each bring to this. So I thank you for the work that you do. And these are challenging times, but we have to keep doing the work. There's no other option. Thank you.
Mary: Thank you all. Have a great day.