College campus in Los Banos, even during COVID, continues to thrive

Another school year has begun at the Los Banos Campus of Merced College, perhaps the strangest beginning of any year in its 49-year history—with almost all classes offered online.

The campus has come a long way since it opened in a rented building at 821 West L Street in 1971. That year the staff consisted of a dean, five full-time faculty, two full-time classified staff and a few hundred students.

Back then, of course, it was all face-to-face, in-person learning. It had to be. The personal computer hadn’t been invented, and the internet as we know it was more than two decades away.

Today the Los Banos Campus enrolls well over a thousand students of all ages each semester, providing a comprehensive two-year education preparing students for careers and four-year colleges.

Fall classes at the campus this year began on August 17, and almost all of them are online (with the exceptions of welding and a science lab) because of COVID-19.

Earlier this summer there was hope that many classes would involve face-to-face interaction, but as the number of COVID cases in Merced County increased, Merced College, at both its Merced and Los Banos Campuses, went almost entirely online.

The faculty, administration and staff at the campus are undaunted. So are the campus’s students. They all have a determination to succeed.

Last March the Los Banos Campus, like the campus in Merced, converted essentially all face-to-face courses to online classes. That was a formidable challenge, a monumental undertaking for all.

Merced College administrators, like Los Banos Campus Dean Lonita Cordova, along with faculty and classified staff, worked around the clock to convert classes to online formats, while providing professional development for instructors and support for students. In less than a week last March, the conversion was complete.

Then came more challenges. Instructors and students had to learn on the fly about the process of successful online teaching and learning. Many students, as well as some faculty, had trouble connecting online, with unreliable and erratic internet connections or no connection at all.

Some Los Banos Campus students wondered if they could continue. But faculty, staff and Dean Cordova did everything in their power to reach out and keep them on track toward completing the semester. Some students had to drop, but most stayed and were successful.

This fall everyone—instructors and students alike--entered the semester with the understanding that nearly all teaching and learning would be remote. Faculty were better prepared to teach online, and students knew more clearly what remote learning would involve.

People behind the scenes at Merced College worked to make sure software programs like Canvas were operating smoothly. Counselors and staff members helped students connect with faculty and other students--to give them the sense they were still truly part of an educational community.

This fall a new group of students came into the mix: recent high school graduates. They too, as seniors in Los Banos high schools, had to adapt to online education last spring.

Some of these students this fall have an advantage as they take college classes. These were high school students last spring who had participated in “dual enrollment,” taking college classes while in high school. Last spring they had already been introduced to Merced College and what it could do digitally.

Overall, the Los Banos Campus has started the fall 2020 semester successfully. Enrollment is good, and its technology is working well. Students and instructors have been successful as they continue to adapt to the new world of online education.

Instructors provide much of the instruction asynchronously, with their teaching and students’ learning happening at different times. Some instructors also have optional synchronous meetings, during which students can zoom in and interact in the class. Many instructors tape their lectures, so that students can listen to them at any time or replay them, if needed.

Of course, there continue to be challenges this fall. Internet connectivity is at the top, although Merced College is doing everything it can to provide options like “hot spots,” where students can connect.

Sufficient hardware is also an issue, although the college is doing what it can by loaning students a large but limited number of laptops, including students at the Los Campus.

There is hope that sometime soon the Los Banos Campus, like the campus in Merced, can return to face-to-face instruction, depending on when COVID cases sufficiently decline in Merced County. When this happens, there will be many hybrid classes, consisting of some in-person and some remote learning.

Once upon a time, I was a community college dean. I encountered many challenges, but nothing like Dr. Cordova is encountering now. Collaborating with faculty and staff at the college, Lonita has been working non-stop through the summer and into the fall to make the fall 2020 semester as successful as possible.

The result is that the Los Banos Campus continues to thrive, delivering an excellent educational product at an extraordinary value, as it has done for the past half-century. I am proud of what the Los Banos Campus is doing now and what it has done in the past 49 years.

The campus continues, despite all challenges, to be an excellent resource for our community and its residents, especially for young people who are entering college looking for a brighter future for themselves and their families.