PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Most students attending colleges in Presque Isle this fall can expect a return to mostly in-person classes, though campuses are still preparing themselves for a COVID-19 situation as uncertain as it was in fall 2020.
At Northern Maine Community College, 65 percent of courses are expected to occur fully in person this fall. Twenty-five percent will occur in a hybrid format, meaning that students and instructors will meet several times in person before transitioning to online later in the semester. All other courses, mostly those within the arts and sciences, will be held completely online.
NMCC President Tim Crowley said that the increased in-person offerings are due to high demand from students.
Programs such as nursing and allied health, which hold in-person labs and clinical experiences, continue to be popular even as COVID-19 demands put a strain on health care professionals. Trade programs such as electrical construction and diesel hydraulics are also in high demand.
(Courtesy of NMCC)
“Students are anxious to get back into the classroom and our faculty feel the same way,” Crowley said. “There are a lot of good jobs [in health care and the trades] and I think we’re seeing that with the demand for those programs.”
But retaining nontraditional students amid the pandemic is a challenge that Crowley expects NMCC will continue to face.
Although the college is expecting to see a slight increase in first-year students, they have already seen a 16 percent drop in second-year students, especially women with young children.
“Many students left in the middle of last semester and didn’t come back. They had children in school but the schools had to do more remote learning,” Crowley said. “Finding day care has been a real challenge [for those parents].”
An upside for the college has been its efforts to help students, faculty and staff receive COVID-19 vaccines. Like all students in the Maine Community College System, those attending NMCC must provide proof of at least their first vaccine dose before the semester begins on Aug. 30.
Crowley said that NMCC has received at least 60 percent of the necessary student vaccination paperwork. Only a small number of students have decided not to attend in-person classes because they prefer not to be vaccinated, he said.
“We have not had a lot of resistance [to the vaccine mandate],” Crowley said.
Currently there is no vaccine mandate for community college system employees, but 85 percent of NMCC’s faculty and staff have voluntarily become fully vaccinated.
When the University of Maine at Presque Isle begins its fall semester on Aug. 30, campus leaders are expecting large numbers of their students, faculty and staff to be fully vaccinated.
According to President Ray Rice, 82 percent of UMPI’s full-time faculty and staff have reported their vaccination or medical or religious exemption status. Seventy-five percent of UMPI’s residential students and 30 percent of non-residential students have turned in vaccination or exemption records, with the majority showing proof of vaccination.
Unlike the community college system, the UMaine System has allowed campus members to seek religious exemptions, which Rice said equals to at least 1 percent of the student body.
“We’ve had good conversations with those students on how to help them make progress with their degrees,” Rice said. “Students overall have mainly been supportive [of the vaccine mandate]. They know it’s the best opportunity to have the safest environment on campus.”
The UMaine System’s vaccine policy says that unvaccinated or partially vaccinated students must be tested for COVID-19 twice weekly. Those who are vaccinated will not be required to quarantine if they have come into contact with someone who has tested positive.
All students, faculty and staff will be required to wear masks inside university buildings until at least Sept. 30, regardless of vaccination status. The Maine Community College System is also mandating that masks be worn indoors.
Though Rice is expecting the campus to report positive COVID-19 cases during the semester, he and campus leaders hope that the higher vaccination rate and mask policies will help prevent a large outbreak and full transition to online learning.
“As long as we maintain these guidelines, I think there will be less need to respond [to positive cases] in the same way we did last fall and spring,” Rice said.
At least 60 percent of UMPI’s courses will be held in-person while 39 percent will fall under the “distanced learning” category, which could include fully online courses or those that allow students on Zoom to participate in a class being held live on campus.
The demand for both traditional in-person classes and distanced versions are as high as ever, Rice said. While many residential and local commuter students want to return to campus, others have opted for more online learning due to personal work or family situations.
As COVID-19 continues to bring about uncertainties, Rice said, the university will likely have to be more flexible with its learning modes to meet students where they are.
“We talk about ‘life after COVID,’ but this virus is not going away soon. It will change the way higher education is delivered,” Rice said.
