{"id":48852,"date":"2021-02-02T12:03:06","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T19:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/life-springs-back-at-fort-lewis-college\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:45:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:45:00","slug":"life-springs-back-at-fort-lewis-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/life-springs-back-at-fort-lewis-college\/","title":{"rendered":"Life springs back at Fort Lewis College"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Maddie
Maddie Gerritsen, a sophomore business major from Denver, and Nils Aberg, a sophomore psychology major, relax between classes Monday at Fort Lewis College. Gerritsen says she appreciates the simple fact of gathering together with her peers in a lecture with everyone focusing on the same task.<\/span>Patrick Armijo\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Dee Redsteer is a self-proclaimed \u201cZoom hater.\u201d<\/p>\n

For her, Monday was a long time coming \u2013 the first day of in-person classes at Fort Lewis College since mid-November, when spiking COVID-19 transmissions in La Plata County forced classes to move online.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t always hear on Zoom. The audio cuts in and out, and it can be non-engaging at times. It\u2019s easy to multitask, and eventually you get distracted,\u201d said Redsteer, a senior exercise major from Kayenta, Arizona, while sitting outside Reed Library.<\/p>\n

Associate professor of biology Caroline Kulesza was just as happy as Redsteer to have students back on campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t teach microbiology without a lab. Well, I can, but it would be awful,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Andy
Andy Gleason, a lecturer in the Department of Geosciences, discusses sandstone sedimentation using bricks on campus as examples with his earth and environment class Monday at Fort Lewis College. Students returned to campus Monday after departing for remote learning in mid-November.<\/span>Patrick Armijo\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Dee
Dee Redsteer, an exercise science major from Kayenta, Arizona, said she appreciates the community and camaraderie in the classroom that were lost with remote learning.<\/span>Patrick Armijo\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The saving grace of the fall semester was that her microbiology classes had more than two months of in-person laboratories before going remote.<\/p>\n

Professors across campus worked hard in fall to adjust labs at FLC to accommodate social distancing and other COVID-19 requirements.<\/p>\n

The number of science lab sessions increased so fewer students were in each session, part of protocols a committee, on which Kulesza sat, devised to accommodate social distancing.<\/p>\n

Kulesza said, \u201cIt took a lot of creativity and then also just adjusting the curriculum,\u201d to devise labs that met COVID-19 public health rules.<\/p>\n

One big adjustment was the move to more individual lab work rather than the time-honored practice of working with lab partners.<\/p>\n

Lab assignments were reconfigured so they could be done individually, and when partner work was required, FLC faculty discovered ways to do that while still meeting the requirements for social distancing, Kulesza said.<\/p>\n

When labs went remote, assignments changed with less experimental work and more analysis of data and other uses of literature, a good fill-in, but something Kulesza said you don\u2019t want to rely on in teaching science.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we were fortunate in that we didn\u2019t have to use all online learning for labs for an entire semester. That would have been a real challenge,\u201d she said. \u201cIn the experiential disciplines, we really tried to make something happen for in-person labs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeff Dupont, associate vice president for student affairs, said some COVID-19 protocols have changed for spring semester \u2013 with the school generally erring on the side of more testing for the coronavirus.<\/p>\n

Everyone on campus must be tested for COVID-19 before joining campus life in spring \u2013 an increase in testing from fall when only students living on campus were required to be tested.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw some positive outcomes from more testing,\u201d Dupont said of a review of the fall semester. \u201cWe want to get out front of any potential outbreaks.\u201d<\/p>\n

As of Saturday, Dupont said 2,160 students had been tested, 2,007 tests processed and the school recorded 11 positive cases. Of the positive cases, five have recovered and the school currently has six active positives.<\/p>\n

\"Students
Students are back on campus at Fort Lewis College for the first time since the second week of November, when a spike in COVID-19 transmissions forced classes to go online.<\/span>Patrick Armijo\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

In addition to the on-campus testing, FLC is allowing students to be tested in their hometowns before arriving on campus. So far, about 700 students have been tested in their hometowns, Dupont said.<\/p>\n

The school has 15 rooms set aside to quarantine students who test positive and a contract with a Durango hotel for 25 additional rooms for quarantines if needed.<\/p>\n

The campus is also using the FLC App<\/a> to track daily symptoms as another line of defense against COVID-19.<\/p>\n

Employees and students receive a daily Green Health Pass using the FLC App \u2013 giving them the ability to circulate on campus.<\/p>\n

One other line of defense against the virus will be random sampling of the campus population.<\/p>\n

Random sampling will begin immediately this semester, while in the fall, the random sampling didn\u2019t begin until four weeks in.<\/p>\n

Every week, 10% of the FLC community will be chosen for random samples to give the school a clearer picture of transmission rates on campus, Dupont said.<\/p>\n

\"Students
Students are back on campus at Fort Lewis College for the first time since the second week of November, when a spike in COVID-19 transmissions forced classes to go online.<\/span>Patrick Armijo\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Still, the virus is making its impact felt. For the spring semester, classes remain offered in a variety of ways \u2013 in-person, all online and a combination of both, called hybrid classes.<\/p>\n

Whatever the inconveniences required to deal with the coronavirus, the price is worth paying to keep in-person learning an option for Nils Aberg and Maddie Gerritsen, two FLC sophomores who were chatting Monday in front of Reed Library.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoy just sitting in the lecture hall with people who are all there for the same reason. There\u2019s an energy you don\u2019t get online and you appreciate it more,\u201d said Gerritsen, a business major.<\/p>\n

Aberg said he chose to attend FLC in Durango, not to get his lessons online back home in Evergreen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful campus, and it\u2019s nice to be out of the house for the first time in a while,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Efforts to minimize COVID-19 still front and center for new semester<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[685,155,132,13,28,445],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-48852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-education","tag-fort-lewis-college","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48852"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87471,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48852\/revisions\/87471"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48852"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=48852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}