ETSU President Brian Noland addressed Friday the recent decision of the men’s basketball team to kneel during the national anthem at several games.
“I know that this is a very ripe issue for discussion across our region,” Noland said in a virtual press conference after the ETSU Board of Trustees meeting. “I have met with Coach (Jason) Shay. I’ll meet with Coach Shay here again over the next couple of days, and we’re going to continue to work through this as a community.”
The Board of Trustees convened in person Friday for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
Social distancing measures were taken as the group met in the new Martin Center for the Arts. Only two members of the board participated via Zoom, and the meeting was livestreamed.
During the two-and-a-half-hour meeting, Amy Johnson, associate provost for faculty and director of the Center for Teaching Excellence, outlined the various new programs and services implemented during the pandemic.
“We created some new programming,” said Johnson. “Two notable ones were Pedagogy Preppers: How to be Prepared to Teach in Any Environment and Course Innovation Camp, which is a partnership with Sherrod Library.”
Johnson went on to note the participation of many faculty and students in the programs produced by the center, and she shared several videos of students thanking key faculty members who helped ease the stress of the challenges of remote learning.
Noland spoke of the work the university has done to help students aside from COVID-19-related health issues.
“Most of our focus on COVID thus far has been about health,” said Noland. “But I wanted you to see today, by design, what we’ve done above and beyond the health space to support the campus and the community as we work through these unique times.”
Michelle Byrd, dean of students, indicated positive student engagement in ETSU’s telehealth counseling services. In fact, many students prefer to attend counseling sessions virtually, as it provides them with a better sense of security and privacy than commuting to a physical meeting on campus. Byrd also discussed the availability of laptops and internet rods which students can borrow for free to use for an entire semester.
ETSU Chief Information Officer Karen King noted the acquisition of Panopto’s services for recording Zoom lectures. King also briefed the board on the increase in outdoor internet hotspots on campus. ITS also worked to install cameras, microphones and screens in campus classrooms for faculty to use to record their lectures.
In other business, Noland discussed a strategic planning effort, called the Committee for 125, version two, which is a five-year action agenda plan designed to advance the university’s branding, budget and finances, administration, student affairs and community outreach, among others.
“Thank you for the opportunity to walk through a series of slides that touch upon what I think will be the most significant strategic planning effort that this board and this campus will have been engaged in in decades,” Noland said.
“For those of you that are watching online that are alum, I hope you’re as proud of your university as those who are sitting here at this table today,” Scott Niswonger, chairman of the board, said at the meeting. “If you’re a parent, you need to know, and you have just learned, if you had any doubt, that your children are being cared for in a very special way, as though they were family, by a very caring group of people.”
