The decision was finalized in an email from the LBCC District this afternoon that Long Beach City College’s spring 2021 semester will be mostly online.
The email stated, “We had hoped that we could reopen campuses this spring; however, we need to continue to follow State and local guidelines including those received from Los Angeles County and our own City and Health Department.”
Said Board of Trustees President Vivian Malauulu on Sept. 8, “The number one thing that’s involved is the safety of our students, and the safety of our employees. First and foremost, whatever we do, we take into complete account that our students and our employees are safe, and their families and the community is safe, because by extension we have a responsibility to make ensure that whoever comes onto campus doesn’t become contaminated with a deadly virus that they can go out and infect their communities with, so we have to be very careful with that.”
Continued Malauulu, “Secondary of course, we want to obey the law. We want to make sure that we are compliant with the law, we want to make sure we obey whatever our public agencies tell us what we have to do, we want to make sure we meet all the protocol.”
The college will most likely follow a similar model as the fall 2020 semester, with most classes online with limited in-person offerings for disciplines that do not translate online well, such as nursing and welding.
LBCC will follow the same social distance and safety guidelines for the laboratory classes that will be held on campus.
Malauulu said she would like to see more labs potentially added to LBCC’s on-campus offerings, but this has yet to be determined.
Said Malauulu, one of her goals is to ensure that athletics return to campus for the spring 2021 semester, and she is working with Interim Athletic Director Bill Husak along with a couple of the coaches to develop a plan. “I believe student-athletes encompass a different slice of our student population and they don’t just show up on the game day, they have to train. They have to make sure they’re healthy and they have the right amount of stamina, that can only be developed from consistent training and working out and conditioning.”
The plans for Commencement will be announced during the spring 2021 semester.