College releases fall plan for classes | St. Clair College
Friday, June 26, 2020
The fall delivery plans have been posted online.

Most courses at St. Clair College will be delivered online in the fall, along with some in-person classes for labs that require hands-on instruction, according to a plan developed for the start of the semester in September.

“We reviewed every course with the faculty and the outcomes for the course and wherever we could put the outcomes online, we did,” said Waseem Habash, Vice President, Academic. “And where it was essential that students required face-to-face instruction, we did that based on the lab capacities and the new COVID risk assessments we did for the labs.”

The fall delivery plans have been posted online. They can be found on individual program pages, under the heading Fall 2020 Program/Course Delivery. Programs can be accessed through this link: https://www.stclaircollege.ca/programs.

Each program has been evaluated by administrators, the chairs of the schools and faculty in order to deliver a curriculum that adheres to public health guidelines. Risk assessments were completed by every department at St. Clair College, following a protocol that is based on the acronym RACE: Recognize, Assess, Control, Evaluate.

The issues addressed included an analysis of the labs’ sizes and the requirement to wear Personal Protective Equipment if social distancing is not possible. “If we couldn’t provide the social distancing of six feet or two meters, then they have to wear PPEs,” Habash said.

Some labs will be divided into two groups, with students attending at different times to allow for ample social distancing.

A few programs were suspended for the fall semester because it would have been impossible to deliver them in person and follow the safety protocols.

The plan covers the fall term only. It will be re-evaluated in late September or October as plans are made to deliver programs in the winter term.

Habash said the academic sector has been working on the fall plan “for weeks.” He is pleased with the outcome. “We went through every single lab and did a risk assessment. Every hallway. Every area of the institution. Our number one objective was to ensure the safety of students and staff.

“Students who decide to come to St. Clair College can be assured that their safety was the first thing in our minds when we were developing the plans.”