CCU slammed by student on TikTok over COVID response

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Coastal Carolina University (CCU) has come under fire from students after some said they were not given any accommodation to help their academics during their quarantine due to COVID-19.

Sophomore Jessica Bauwens posted a video on TikTok while reading an email she sent to university president Michael T. Benson on Saturday outlining some of her concerns. The email alleges that the university does not allow their quarantined students to attend their classes through Zoom or other conferencing system.

I understand the University wishes us in person, but when you fail to accommodate the large enough number of positive, missing class students, I question Coastals’ true intentions with student academic success, wrote Bauwens in the email, which was provided to The Sun News. We all want to be in person, all we ask is that the University welcome students who are ill and who will inevitably fall behind academically due to the lack of University policy.

In an email to The Sun News, CCU provost Dan Ennis said it was up to the individual teacher if he wanted to use Zoom or some other form of streaming his course depending on the course, well. let Bauwens understand that professors were not allowed to broadcast their lessons in this manner.

The format and delivery of the course determines which accommodations are best, Ennis wrote. For example, a dance teacher probably wouldn’t use Zoom. A history teacher who teaches a lot of lessons could do this.

Bauwens had not received a response to her email to Benson on Monday morning, she said.

Bauwens’ video on TikTok garnered more than 100,000 likes on the platform, and a petition calling for better academic resources during quarantine garnered more than 3,800 signatures as of Monday afternoon.

The university reported 62 positive cases from August 19 to 25, according to its COVID-19 dashboard. As of July 29, 117 cases have been reported among staff and students. The number of students in quarantine is not publicly available on the dashboard.

CCU requires masks in all interior areas of the campus this year. Vaccinations are also encouraged, both through university messaging and the chance to win scholarships, including a full race for one semester. Absences due to exposure or infection to COVID-19 are also considered excused. Although Bauwens said she appreciates what the CCU is doing to keep students safe, she said the same effort needs to be made to ensure that students receive academic support.

The Dean’s Office of Students works with students to provide resources during their quarantine, but students must work with their professors individually to complete the course and arrangements are made on a case-by-case basis, according to the CCU website. A similar process is described in an email sent to Provost students Dan Ennis that was reviewed by a Sun News reporter.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution; Patience and flexibility on the part of students and faculty are needed to allow this university to continue to function in the face of a serious public health challenge, Ennis wrote in the email.

But the lack of a universal plan for faculty and students to follow during their quarantine period creates more obstacles, Bauwens said, leaving students on their own to try and learn the material if they don’t. cannot stream the course while this is happening. She said she relied on the grades of other students and relied on her ability to teach herself from the textbook since testing positive for COVID-19 last week.

Since most of my classes are lecture-based, there’s no way for me to catch up on those lectures, she told Sun News. Once it happened, it happened. So I’m missing some really good material that I need to complete my homework and take tests. It will definitely affect my GPA.

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Mary Norkol covers housing and homelessness for The Sun News through Report for America, an initiative that strengthens local news coverage. She joined The Sun News in June 2020 after graduating from Loyola University in Chicago. She was editor-in-chief of Loyola Phoenix, leading the newspaper to # 1 in its General Excellence category from the Illinois College Press Association. Norkol has won awards for podcasting, multimedia reporting, in-depth reporting and reporting from CAPI. While in college, she reported breaking news for the Daily Herald and interned at the Chicago Sun-Times and CBS Chicago.

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