HCI College COVID-19 Updates

A message to HCI College Students from the Administration

March 16, 2020

With all of the alerts being seen on the news outlets, we thought we would take a moment to tell you why we are staying the course through concerns with the Coronavirus.

Firstly, all of our students are adults and, as adults, it is each student’s responsibility to take in all of the information available, and then decide what course of action is best for her or him. This is a fluid situation, and there are no promises or guarantees regardless of the choices that are made. If it is in your best interest to self-quarantine, then we would advise you to do so. If your decision is to try to continue with your classes in the safest mode available, then you can follow our lead.

We are trying to take a thoughtful and nuanced approach. Nobody knows where this is going and what the landscape will look like in a week, or even a few days. Closing is a tremendous disruption to students, staff, and faculty, and it creates serious repercussions well beyond what we see day-to-day. We do not want to take steps for what, we feel, would be an unnecessary closing, at this time. There is no evidence that closing will stop the spread of the virus or even suppress transmission. If that were not the case, or if that changes, we may take different action.

There has been no blanket response called for by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), or the Federal Government. Just as the state of Washington has responded differently than the state of Maryland, we will respond differently than other colleges. We cannot compare our actions to other schools, and certainly not to public schools, or larger private colleges. Most of our students are only on campus one or two days per week, at the most. We have small class sizes; we do not have classrooms with 100 or more students. We also have small campuses, and none of our campuses meet the definition of a “large event,” or “mass gathering.” On a five-day week, the West Palm Beach campus averages 108 students (physically) scheduled in attendance between day and night classes across multiple classrooms. On a four-day week, the Fort Lauderdale campus averages 103 students scheduled to attend classes daily in their building. We do not have dorm rooms and dining facilities where students are in close quarters.

HCI College is fortunate to offer part of our coursework online. While we plan to utilize the online medium as allowed by our accreditors to supplement ground classes, online classes are not an across-the-board solution. Not all of our students can make the transition to online delivery with ease, whether that is because of access issues, or because of experience. Also, not all of our content can be delivered as well online as we do it on campus.

Schools that are closing for a week or two are just flipping the switch off and on. There are negative consequences to closing too soon, as there are negative consequences to reopening too soon after a closure. Remember that colleges and schools are not closing because the classes are unsafe. Our classrooms are not unsafe. We can make safety and cleanliness a priority and still deliver education. We can consider that students may have attendance challenges due to illness, school closures, changed work schedules, etc., and still finish this grading period. We can limit traffic to the campuses and still provide the practical training that our students need.

COVID-19 Update to Students from the HCI College Administration

March 17, 2020

As we indicated in our prior message, we are doing everything we can to continue to run classes in a safe manner for our students.

Starting on Monday, March 30, 2020, we will begin teaching our resident (ground-based) classes for Nursing and EMS students in a semi-synchronous online delivery that will not require students to come to campus to get their classwork done. In a nutshell, we will use our online Learning Management System (LMS) so our students can complete their assignments from home. We will continue with the same syllabi and faculty. We have been working on this conversion for the last couple of weeks, and we are utilizing the week of the break (March 23- 27) to complete the transition. We ask for your patience and cooperation this week as we complete all of the necessary steps towards the online transition.

During the week of the break, those students affected by the change will receive instructions from their instructors on how to begin their transition to the online platform. This change will remain in place as long as it is needed. HCI College will continue to monitor the Coronavirus situation and will revert to normal resident-style classes at the appropriate time.

We will continue to provide any updates as they become available.