Jump on! SVCC starts classes with Big Red Chair

DIXON – It’s hard to know exactly how many Sauk Valley Community College students jumped into the inflatable Big Red Chair on Tuesday in the campus’ West Mall.

However, if Ana Salgado had to venture a guess, she said it was somewhere close to 80.

“It went well,” said Salgado, who is the coordinator for student and cross-cultural activities and was reviewing the photographs of the day’s activity. “It looks like they had a good time.”

It’s the start of the spring semester. In-person learning carries on. All the students were masked: the school requires paper masks, cloth masks with paper filters or N95-style masks be worn.

Weekly Shield Illinois tests are also provided. All students and employees must take them once a week.

Jonathan Mandrell, vice president of academics and student services, said a lot of students and staff did their testing on Monday. That allowed the school to determine which two areas of the college would move to remote learning while the others continued with in-person classes.

Mandrell said it lets students and staff pivot quickly; if a class temporarily goes fully remote or an individual student tests positive and has to watch a lecture via video feed, they’ll know in a timely fashion.

“Testing really provides us with that opportunity,” he said. “Closure before they begin class for the week. Ensure we have as many safety parameters in place. … Everyone knows what the delivery of that course is going to be in the event of a shift.”

Mandrell said enrollment at SVCC is at 1,478, up nearly 20% from a year ago. Along with that comes a 10% increase in credit hours. That number may go up as current students still have the option to add classes to their course load.

As for student activities like the Big Red Chair, they are usually held on Mondays and Wednesday starting at noon — a free period on everyone’s schedule.

But Salgado said the Big Red Chair is something of a tradition. Plus, it was a great chance to draw students to the activity table and provide them with a schedule of upcoming events.

“Just trying it out,” she said. “Glad we had a really good response from students. Want to increase student participation so we were able to share our list of events with them.”

It was also a chance to enter a drawing for $50 worth of credit at the college bookstore. On that score, student Amanda Myers won the prize.

On Wednesday there will be a Build-A-Bear workshop in the West Mall. On Jan. 26, Deputy Kyle Kellen will be on hand to discuss precautions students can take in an active shooter situation. On Feb. 16 illusionist Taylor Korso will perform in the college cafeteria and on Feb. 25 leadership and diversity consultant Joshua Fredenburg will provide a session via Zoom.

Eric Epps, dean of information and security, the campus has tightened some restrictions, such as not having spectators for athletic events. People can view the livestream on the SVCC athletics youtube page.