ELY – Vermilion Community College will remain closed to students through the end of the spring semester as part of the ongoing effort to control the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
“In this rapidly changing situation around COVID-19, Minnesota State has taken numerous actions at the system level for all of our 32 colleges and universities,” said VCC Provost Shawn Bina in a statement issued Tuesday. “In addition, VCC has further clarified our actions as they apply directly to our college constituents. As this situation continues to evolve, recommendations and actions are certain to change, but the two guiding principles to all of our actions remain, to safeguard the health, safety, and welfare of our faculty, staff, and students, and to enable students to complete the spring semester and progress toward their educational goals.”
Among the measures that VCC will implement are the following:
• Spring break has been extended for all VCC students until March 30.
When instruction resumes, all Vermilion classes will be delivered in a distance learning format through the remainder of spring semester. There will be no face-to-face instruction during this time.
• All spring sports and athletic related activities have been canceled for spring semester.
• Closing the college weight room facilities and beginning a systematic closing of certain academic spaces that will not be in use as a result of moving to distance learning for spring semester.
• Cancelling all scheduled group events and activities, both sponsored by the college and hosted by the college for the remainder of spring semester. This includes the college’s in-person spring new student registration sessions.
• Rolling out a process for new student registration sessions to be conducted remotely this spring.
• Reaching out to all current students to assist them in remotely scheduling their classes for fall semester, 2020.
• Informing students that although the dorms and college food service currently remain open, there are very few reasons why students should return to their residence halls as classes will be delivered via distance learning and practicing social distancing will be more conducive outside of the campus residential living environment.
• Establishing an information page on the college website for current information regarding this rapidly changing situation. That page can be found at https://www.vcc.edu/covid-19/.