More than 150 colleges and universities have “switched” between in-person and distance education since the start of the Fall semester. From Notre Dame to UNC Chapel Hill to Colorado College to Michigan State University, the list of schools who are transitioning between modalities is significant.

Of course, this is in addition the schools who had already moved into Fall 2020 with a “Hy-Flex” model of instruction. While this term has a lot of “flavors”, the concept is fairly similar across institutions. Students can take classes in-person, online, synchronously or asynchronously, and they can move amongst these contexts as they wish, changing at any time.

While these teaching and learning models certainly produce a lot of challenges, this blog is not about addressing in-class situations or issues. For assistance or advice on everything from instructional options to modality recommendations, we encourage you to check out the Institute for Inter-Connected Education which Campus proudly supports.

Instead, this blog seeks to help with another major hurdle created by this Fall’s covid-context: communications.

According to Todd Miller, COO of Rave Mobile Safety, “If you’re constantly sending new updates to your community and changing direction: we’re open today, now we’re doing remote, we’re going to be back open in a week … that can be confusing. I think schools need to be very deliberate about their plans. And I think they need to be as consistent as possible with how they are going to communicate certain things.”

At Campus, we agree! But we also feel this goes far beyond student safety, it applies to all facets of student success. Lisa Karanen, Department of Communication Chair at UC Denver explained it beautifully:

“And effective response and recovery demands coordination and collaboration that are only achieved through clear, consistent, ethical, community-focused communication. The Latin root of communication, communicare, means to share, a goal that is very much at the heart of our COMMunity.”

But that job is exponentially more difficult with the variables of modality added to the already difficult variables of student-desired communication channels, legitimately-used communication channels, message titles, and more. It’s not a secret that most students (and let’s be honest, some staff and faculty) struggle to read email. Most millennials (and younger) report that they dislike the medium entirely! Yet, email is the predominant method by which colleges and universities communicate with students!

That’s where Campus comes in. This is a major reason why Campus has seen explosive growth in the past year. The Campus platform has a lot of new and better ways to communicate with students, faculty, and staff during normal times. But during times of quarantine, seeing students “toggle” back and forth between in-person and remote learning regularly, the value of those communications tools Campus can provide rise in value a lot.

Sending notices to targeted groups of people, pushing notifications across devices, repurposing emails and announcements as “pinned posts” across activity feeds are just some of the ways Campus institutions are succeeding during this challenging time.

This is in addition to the power of helping students connect with one another as well as with support staff, offices, and experts, helping them feel like they are still getting the “college experience” even when at home.

There is a reason our partners call Campus the “Great Connector” for Higher Ed. We love that nickname. And we’d love to show you why these communication options, as well as a bevy of other features make Campus the perfect solution to wrap around the online class experience. By connecting people to the right thing / person / office at just the right time, there is a reason we are being touted as a “Top 3” platform by most of our university and college partners.

Contact us today to have a quick chat, receive a tour of the platform, or go through the many reasons Campus is being adopted at a record pace in spite of the pandemic. Not only can we help…it is our mission to do so.

Good luck and good learning.