On Tuesday, University of Idaho Faculty Senate discussed plans to leave Blackboard Learn, as well as enrollment, COVID-19 and Title IX.
The plan to leave Blackboard Learn comes with a timeline to transfer to the alternative academic platform Canvas.
The university has a chance to use Canvas at no cost till 2023, as the Idaho State Board of Education has decided to pay for its use.
Currently, the university is in a contract with Blackboard Learn till September 2023. The plan is to use Blackboard Learn as a server to hold course information during the full transfer.
There will also be a new version of Blackboard Learn being released at the beginning of January 2022. Swapping to Canvas would make it easier to learn one system rather than learning both.
The senate will submit a recommendation and plan to the university.
Also during Tuesday’s meeting, Vice Provost Torrey Lawrence discussed enrollment in the context of COVID-19. Currently, enrollment is higher than this time last year.
“Some of our colleges are up, some of them are down,” Lawrence said. “New students are clearly up, and our returning students (are) a current challenge. It wasn’t disastrous, but it is a concern.”
Out of state, foreign and western undergraduate exchange students are up, but the resident enrollment of local Idahoans is down, according to Lawrence.
Jean-Marc Gauthier, program head for virtual technology and design, asked Lawrence about what can be done for retention. Flexibility was the main question of offering online classes for those students that work or have financial problems.
“We have heard from faculty that hyflex … worked great,” Lawrence said. “But for others, it was very challenging.”
Currently there are 2,256 students that have provided proof of their vaccination status for incentives.
UI has worked alongside the Public Health – Idaho North Central District on guidelines for instruction in the fall.
“We decided to go ahead and extend the mask mandate another three weeks,” Lawrence said. “So that takes us to Sept. 20, and we will reevaluate once we get closer to that date.”
Arash Rashed, an associate professor in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, asked what UI has done to help reassure professors to feel more comfortable with the removal of social distancing requirements and testing.
“We planned this semester with normal classroom capacity rather than the 50% room capacity like last year,” Lawrence said. “Primarily because we saw no transmission in class last year and (still are) requiring masks.”
Most transmission that occurred on campus was through living groups. UI has also taken consideration of local infection rates, hospitalization rates and recommendations from Public Health – Idaho North Central District.
“We have focused on vaccine encouraging and incentivizing students and making vaccines readily available,” Lawrence said. “We have focused on masks and have that culture of mask wearing.”
Lawrence said that a reason testing isn’t required is that current medical resources are stretched. In contrast, Lewis-Clark State College has random weekly testing for those who don’t provide proof of vaccination.
“With their testing, they were given a finite number of tests from the state, that would not have given us enough to go through one required testing,” Lawrence said.
Lastly during the meeting, a motion to pass changes to Title IX was supported by the Faculty Senate. The supported changes stem from a lawsuit in Massachusetts that was successful in vacating a previous ruling.
The change is aimed at ensuring any scheduling conflicts won’t negate anyone’s statement from being considered.
Erin Agidius, Title IX coordinator, spoke to the faculty regarding this change to Title IX.
“Any sort of decision maker, like the conduct board, under the original regulation, could not rely on past statements, unless they submitted to cross-examination,” Agidius said. “If someone made an admission or a witness that had critical insight, but wasn’t able to attend or didn’t participate, we couldn’t use any of those statements.”
This change will open up the consideration of cases with fuller information.
Daniel V. Ramirez can be reached at [email protected] or Twitter @DVR_Tweets