REACH Program Parent Blog

As a parent and caregiver, you’ve always been a source of  support for your child; there to offer a sympathetic ear and a helping hand whenever assistance has been needed.

Part of the growing-up process – and a large part of helping to shape your child into an independent adult –  means that, while you should continue to listen and make suggestions, don’t step in and automatically fix your adult child’s problems for them.

Dr. Jeffrey Bernstein‘s recently published article in Bottom Line Magazine offers some advice that may run counter to your parental instincts, but will help your student become a successful, confident adult.

Stop Rescuing Your Adult Child

We’ve been back on campus for almost two weeks now, and while all students have had to tackle new challenges this semester, the class of 2024 is having a particularly unusual year. An element of the traditional freshman experience that hasn’t changed, unfortunately, is homesickness.

A number of the common suggestions we offer to help students combat loneliness aren’t practical in our hybrid virtual/in-person world. Thankfully, Grown and Flown recently posted an article that has several excellent suggestions a parent can use to help their student tackle homesickness.

Grown and Flown: How to help your college freshman when they’re homesick

Please note: the REACH Program will follow the same schedule as the university.

Dear Campus Community,

I am writing to you today with an important update regarding our plans to have students return to campus this fall.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on South Carolina and the Lowcountry, the College of Charleston will delay the start of in-person classes for three weeks until Monday, September 14. Classes will begin as scheduled on Tuesday, August 25, in an online environment.

As a parent of a rising college freshman, I understand full well how hard this news is to share, but this temporary adjustment is the right and safest path forward for our campus. As you know, our faculty and staff have been hard at work planning for a campus return in late August. Unfortunately, even with the many precautions that we are taking in the classroom and around campus to lessen the chance of the spread of COVID-19, we feel we must take this step to delay in-person instruction in order to best protect and ensure the health and safety of our students, faculty and staff members as well as the greater Charleston community.

We have had to make this pivot due to several factors: the number of daily positive cases in South Carolina, the high percentage of tests that are positive, the declining number of available hospital beds, medical staffing shortages in the region and testing backlogs. These issues combined do not make it optimal for us to return 10,000 students into the area, which could add stress to an already heavily stressed healthcare system.

We did not come to this decision lightly, and we tried to hold off as long as possible as we monitored conditions – especially how the face covering ordinance in Charleston and throughout Charleston County, which began in early July, might lower the daily number of positive cases.

We know this puts an emotional, physical and financial strain on all of our students and their families. In order to alleviate some of this pressure, the College will refund a portion of our housing, dining and parking costs while we go into this three-week, fully online environment until September 14.

The College will also delay move-in for residential students, which was previously scheduled to take place August 20-23. New move-in dates and procedures are being finalized and will be announced soon by Campus Housing.

For those who still need to live in campus housing during these first few weeks of online instruction, we are working to develop a process similar to one we followed last spring that allows students to apply for an exemption. Students who receive this exemption will follow strict face covering and social distancing protocols as outlined in our Back on the Bricks plan and would not be eligible for discounted housing, dining and parking costs. In most cases, it is safer for students to remain where they currently are in order to limit the spread of COVID-19. More details on this exemption process will be provided to residential students by Campus Housing in the coming days.

While I’m certainly disappointed that we have had to delay our return to campus, I am confident that our faculty and staff have developed an extremely robust online and remote learning environment for our students that will provide them with a high-quality academic experience until our campus community can safely return to in-person instruction. This summer, many of our faculty have undertaken specialized distance-education training – proving that learning never stops on our campus! While the mode of instruction may be slightly different, the content and expert teaching behind it will be the same.  

I know these past several months have been hard, perhaps even unbearable at times. So much seems to have been taken away from our students – both for our first-time, incoming students as well as our returning students. My sincere hope is that, in retrospect, this short delay in meeting in-person proves to be a small sacrifice that leads to a big reduction in the transmission of this disease.

Our faculty and staff will work hard and do whatever is possible to ensure that students continue to make academic progress during these disruptive times. Yes, we will move forward together! That is the College of Charleston way – and has been for 250 years since our founding and will be for the next 250 years.

Please check your email and College accounts regularly over the next few weeks, as we will be providing more details regarding these adjustments in the days and weeks ahead.

Stay healthy and Go Cougars!

Sincerely,

Andrew

Andrew T. Hsu, Ph.D.

President

All parents of upper classmen living on-campus: please see the below information regarding Move-In scheduling. These instructions were also sent to your student’s College of Charleston email on Monday, July 20th.

Schedule your Move-in

For more information about move-in, including driving directions, and health and safety protocols, click here. Please note: In an effort to allow for safe distancing, move-in will be staggered over several days. Each residence hall has specific days available, and you must register for a specific move-in time slot by following the instructions below. Move-in appointments will be available for selection starting Tuesday, July 21, 2020 at 9:00AM.  Students are only allowed to move in during their specific move-in time slot.

• Log into the MyHousing/Dining portal
• Click on Appointments (top left)
• Under Move-in Appointment, click on the available room, and hit Save & Continue
• Under Appointments, select from an available time slot
• After selecting your time slot, hit Yes to confirm. You will then see a screen with your Booked Timeslot.

Each time slot is for two hours, with a one-hour break in between slots. Please consult with anyone helping you during move-in before registering for a time. If your schedule is flexible, consider waiting to register so that students with more restrictive schedules can sign up first. Finally, the portal may be slow during peak times. If you get an error message, please be patient and repeat the login process.

Please also communicate with your roommate / suitemate about your plans for a time slot. The scheduling system is designed so that roommates / suitemates cannot overlap. This is to avoid overcrowding in a room or suite. Each time slot is for two hours, with a one-hour break in between slots. If you will have other people assisting you and you will need more time than this for setup, discuss your plans with your roommate / suitemate and select nonadjacent time slots accordingly.

All enrolled students who have registered for housing: you will soon be receiving an email asking you to go back in and sign the documents necessary to secure your Fall housing.

Residence Life has reduced housing capacity by 40%, and if you wait until after July 8th, there will be no available Housing.

The REACH Program staff are working hard to ensure all of our students have housing, but the student will still need to follow the emailed instructions to secure housing on their part.

Dear Campus Community:

I hope everyone is staying safe. As you may be aware, there has been a lot of activity at the College (albeit, most of it done remotely, of course!) in preparing our return to campus workplans, and there have been important developments here in Charleston to slow the transmission of COVID-19.

Here are a few important updates:

• Requirement of Face Coverings in Charleston: On Thursday, June 25, the Charleston City Council, after working with the College’s administration and student leaders, passed a temporary ordinance requiring face coverings when in public places, effective Wednesday, July 1. The ordinance applies to our campus and requires the use of a face mask within the city for the following conditions:
  1. All restaurants and retail stores that include but are not limited to salons, barber shops, grocery stores, pharmacies or other buildings open to the public.
  2. While interacting with people in outdoor spaces, including but not limited to, curbside pickup, delivery and service calls.
  3. While providing public or commercial transportation, including tours.
  4. While walking in public where maintaining a six-foot distance between people is not possible.
  5. When participating in a permitted or allowable gathering (which follows our university’s guidelines for faculty, staff and students interacting in person on campus).

I want to personally thank the leadership of Mayor John Tecklenburg and City Councilmen Mike Seekings, Peter Shahid and Keith Waring and all those that voted in favor of this provision for working on behalf of the College and other downtown businesses to get this temporary ordinance passed. What we do now in Charleston will have an impact on our plans for the fall.

• Back on the Bricks plan: Back on the Bricks outlines the College’s plans for students, faculty and staff returning to campus this fall. These plans cover various aspects of campus – from classroom set-up, to cleaning protocols, to pedestrian traffic flow, to residence hall occupancy, to dining services, among much more. The plans will be published online on Wednesday, July 1.
• Extending the Suspension of In-person Campus Events: With the current spike of COVID-19 cases in Charleston County and across South Carolina, the College of Charleston is extending its moratorium on campus events through July 15.
• Next Round of Virtual Town Hall Meetings: We will host our next round of virtual town hall meetings for faculty/staff and for students/families next Thursday, July 2. Students/Families: 5:00 – 5:45 p.m. (EST), Thursday, July 2, 2020 https://go.cofc.edu/student-parents-virtual-town-hall (No login required)

As you can see, there is a lot going on. Have a safe weekend, and I hope to see you next week at our town halls!

Sincerely,

Andrew

August 2020

September 2020

October 2020

November 2020

December 2020

February 2021

*SD – Storm Day Makeup (no classes unless the College deems necessary; on campus instruction for PE Activity Courses, labs, studio, performance courses only; virtual instruction on these days for all other courses)

Note: Consistent with all applicable laws, any weekend day or designated holiday may be used as a storm makeup day.

Last Revised: 06-01-2020

On Sunday, March 15, in response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster ordered the closure of the state’s k-12 schools and public universities for the next two weeks.

For public universities, the governor’s order means the College of Charleston’s main campus and satellite campuses are closed, at least until April 3. The College will suspend its in-person classes and move to online/distance learning from March 23 until at least April 3 (which extends the previously announced e-learning schedule by one week).

Residence halls will remain open and the majority of student services (i.e., library, advising, counseling, health services) will continue operating on a modified schedule. However, students are strongly encouraged to return home or stay home during spring break and the e-learning schedule (March 23– April 3). For those students for whom this is not a realistic option, they are welcome to stay on campus.

Based on the governor’s announcement, all College-sponsored non-essential domestic travel is suspended until further notice.

The previously announced cancellation of college events through March 29 has now been extended through April 5.

On behalf of the College, I want to thank you for your patience and flexibility during this rapidly evolving situation. I know anxiety is high, both for you, your friends and your families. As a community, we are taking these extraordinary steps in order to prevent the spread of the virus and protect the most vulnerable in our community.

I want to remind everyone that while you are on spring break and while learning from a distance (wherever that may be) to continue to practice good hygiene (wash hands often, cover your mouth and nose when you sneeze, stay away from others if you feel sick with headache, fever and/or have difficulty breathing).

And please know that we are doing everything we can to protect you and our entire campus community and we will do everything we can to preserve the rest of our spring semester.

Sincerely,

Andrew
Andrew T. Hsu, Ph.D.

Note from President Hsu:

Dear Campus Community:

As we all watch what is happening with the Coronoavirus pandemic in the U.S. and around the world, it’s probably safe to say that this situation will, unfortunately, get worse before it improves.

In consultation with our academic leadership, our emergency management team, other state higher education leaders, the S.C. Governor’s Office and the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, I have made the decision to suspend in-person classes the week following spring break and to extend our international travel prohibition through June 30, 2020.

All academic instruction, without exception, will be held online Monday, March 23 through Friday, March 27. Campus will remain open and operational during this e-learning week. However, all campus events (i.e., performances, conferences, guest lectures, student gatherings) are canceled through March 29.

Students are strongly encouraged to return home or stay home during spring break and the e-learning week (March 23-27). 

For those for whom this is not a realistic option, students are welcome on campus as detailed more fully on emergency.cofc.edu.

For further details on e-learning, College operations and employee work arrangements, please go to https://emergency.cofc.edu/suspension-of-in-person-classes-due-to-coronavirus-pandemic-march-23-27/

On behalf of the College, I appreciate your patience and flexibility during this very tumultuous time. Together, we will get through this!

The College of Charleston continues to closely monitor the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak for its ongoing and potential impacts on our university community. At this time, no cases of Coronavirus have been identified at the College of Charleston, and classes and normal operations will continue as scheduled.

As a precautionary measure, this Thursday, March 12^th, the College will be conducting in-person classes, specifically lectures and seminars, online. No classes have been cancelled.

The library and all student services (e.g., residence halls, dining facilities, student support services) will remain on their normal operating schedules. All campus events and activities will take place as scheduled.

Read President Hsu’s letter regarding Thursday’s virtual schooling test here, and for up-to-date information on the College of Charleston’s response to the coronavirus, please monitor the College of Charleston website.