The East Central Community College Board of Trustees revised a policy and granted authorization to prepare for an extended closure of the college campus as a result of the coronavirus outbreak during a special called meeting Thursday.
The meeting was held in the conference room with President Billy Stewart, Board Chairman Jimmy Hollingsworth, board attorney Brian Mayo, David Case, vice president for institutional research and effectiveness, and Bill Wagnon, vice president for public information. At least 20 other board members joined via teleconference.
The first action revised ECCC’s employee leave policy to reflect state statute and allow employees to receive administrative leave with pay due to extreme weather conditions, natural disasters and other emergencies. Stewart said the policy would “give us the ability should we need to move in that direction in the future that individuals who are either not able to come to work or are told to stay home would still be able to be paid under the state statute of administrative leave with pay.”
The second resolution would allow Stewart and presidents the authority to classify employees as essential and non-essential employees in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The third resolution authorizes the college to pay any employees placed on administrative leave with pay during the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Stewart said he is not aware of any employees connected with the university that have contracted the coronavirus or been indirectly impacted by it.
“We kind of have a plan, but the pandemic response team will finalize that for next week, which will be the first week back after our circumstances,” Stewart said. “I expressed with Dr. Hollingsworth early, this was probably last week, about my desire to make sure that our employees are as best we can maintained whole. Right now the administrative pay as we defined it would affect all full-time employees and all part-time employees who work 20 hours or more and qualify for benefits with the college. We are trying our best to make sure that we protect their income and so that’s why we’re asking for this ability.”
ECCC’s pandemic response team, which consists of many of the administrative council, met at 3 p.m. Thursday to discuss the situation and determine a final plan for next week. The college intends to release those plans to the public between 8 and 9 a.m. Friday.
ECCC has already extended spring break for students through next week. During that announcement earlier this week, Stewart said they announced their plans to move to online instruction with classes to begin on March 30.
“More than likely, our intention is to close the campus to the public and to students,” Stewart said. “Our dormitories have no residents other than we may have one international student who did not go home for spring break and is still there.”
Cones have been placed on the streets to block entrance to campus and to parking areas. Employees are working to clean, disinfect and sanitize the campus, concentrating on doors, tabletops, countertops and other. Stewart asked if employees needed to come on campus to call ahead so that the workers are aware of it so the affected areas can be cleaned again.
Stewart said the closure of the campus would also affect all buildings, athletic facilities, the walking trail and all parts of campus. No members of the public would be allowed to be on campus.
While Gov. Tate Reeves issued an order to close public schools until April 17, Stewart said community colleges don’t fall under that order. However, the board of trustees and college officials would make the call to extend the closure of campus.
To assist with students being able to participate in online classes, Stewart is talking with local businesses to extend WiFi service to parking areas around campus to allow students to drive up and use the internet to perform classwork.
The college is also seeking ways that students across all counties in the district can find internet access. However, Stewart said that has been a challenge.
“It does not go unnoticed that some students will be very hard-pressed for internet access,” Stewart said. “So we are going to do our best to try and identify resources they can use whether it be on campus, which we will evaluate next week, in a very small group and things like that to resources within their own county where they can go and get internet access.
Hollingsworth, who met with Kyle Jordan, field representative for U.S. Rep. Michael Guest, said they are working on trying to “beef up” their internet coverage to allow for better internet coverage.
“They’re working on it from a federal level as well,” Hollingsworth said. “Not only are community colleges, but a lot of high schools are going to online and they realize in rural areas such as ours there’s not a lot of great internet access. I know at my house I have internet access, but it’s not the greatest. So that’s why I’m up here at East Central to do this call.”
ECCC is currently on spring break, and Stewart is happy about that now.
“I told someone earlier this week that when our first schedule came out, I looked at the spring break week and it didn’t coincide with most of our schools,” Stewart said. “I was a little disappointed, and now I’m out right giddy about the fact that we are on spring break this week, which gives us this opportunity to respond wisely and appropriately to the times that we find ourselves in.”
“This is unprecedented times; however, we’re hoping that we can simply move steadily and wisely in how we’re going to respond to it,” Stewart added. “There will be frustration along the way. Anytime there is uncertainty, there appears to be a lot of frustration along the way. We hope that we can assuage some of that as we move along by these messages that are going out.”
When asked by a trustee about graduation, Stewart said they are considering a postponement, but no final decision has been made.
“I think we are going to have a final determination on that early next week. Right now, all college sponsored activities have been cancelled. We are not sponsoring any activities at this point in time. That would be one of them. We’ll make a decision on that and communicate it to students, to you and others early next week, that’s the intention.”
