With COVID-19 impacting community colleges, Interact CEO Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto brought together two marketing and public relations specialists who are on the leading edge of community colleges affected by the current situation in the state of Washington. Kelly Green, chief community relations officer at South Puget Sound Community College and Katherine Schiffner, director of public relations at Everett Community College shared their experiences of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, and discussed how they have handled the changes to their respective colleges.
The discussion covered:
To access additional COVID-19 resources, click here.
With COVID-19 impacting community colleges, Interact CEO Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto brought together two marketing and public relations specialists who are on the leading edge of community colleges affected by the current situation in the state of Washington. Kelly Green, chief community relations officer at South Puget Sound Community College and Katherine Schiffner, director of public relations at Everett Community College shared their experiences of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, and discussed how they have handled the changes to their respective colleges.
The discussion covered:
To access additional COVID-19 resources, click here.
Announcer - Interact Communications: 0:00
Marketing for community colleges is tough, but after 20 years of working solely with two-year technical and community colleges, we've learned a few things. Now we want to share them with you. Welcome to the Community College Marketing Masterclass Podcast If you're looking for expert insights from industry experts, you've come to the right place, bringing more than three decades of marketing and communications experience, please welcome your host and Interact Communications founder and CEO Pam Cox-Otto, PhD.
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 0:37
Welcome to today's podcast. I'm Dr Pam Cox Otto. Today I'm being joined by two of the finest community college, public relations and marketing people I know, and I know lots of them. Both of these women are at the leading edge of community College is dealing with the COVID-19 virus in the U. S. A. They're both professionals in the Washington state area, where they are 2 to 3 weeks ahead of the rest of us Together, we're going to talk about what they're doing right now and things they wish they had known back when it all began. Today I have with me two of my favorite people, Kelly Green, who's the chief communications officer at Ah, at South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia, Washington, and ah Katherine Shifter, who's the director of public relations at Everett Community College. And the reason why I asked both of them here today is that they are truly on the front lines of the dealing with the Corona virus across ah, across the community college spectrum. It hit in Washington state. First, I think the first person was actually in California, but they were very soon eclipsed by, uh, the breakout in the Seattle area. And Washington is absolutely on the front lines of dealing with this and the community colleges in Washington state have been dealing with this longer than most folks, so that's why them. So, let me welcome you both.
Kelly Green, Chief Community Relations Officer - South Puget Sound Community College: 2:05
Thank you. I'm excited to be here.
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 2:07
Thank you.
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 2:08
Hey, Katherine, Too long. It's been too long.
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 2:12
It's nice to be able to share our experiences. They first COVID-19 cases, actually, in Everett, Washington, which is where my community college is located at.
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 2:24
Wow. So let's get right into it. Let's just I'm gonna I'm going to just ask a question and then let both of you kind of negotiate who goes forward. Since we're dealing with this on Zoom, and anybody who hears it will know this is just the new, the new normal, right? Um, so since the first patient came forward and Everett, talk to me about about what happened with the college, first realized that there was an issue locally.
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 2:54
So the very first patient in the United States was treated at Providence Regional Medical Center, which is located about two blocks south of Everett Community College. And it's also a key location for our health sciences students, especially our nursing students. And so when that situation occurred in January, the college wasn't directly impacted. But that's when we started our planning process, and it also provided an opportunity because we want immediately directly impacted for us to help out our communication callings over at the health distort? As you might imagine, they were overwhelmed immediately with national and international media as all of a lot of from the communities. So we were able to provide some assistance because we weren't so busy on our end with translation for materials and creating templates for educational organizations.
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 3:54
So that was the calm before the storm, right?
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 3:57
Yes.
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 3:59
So what was going on at the same time at South Puget Sound. Kelly.
Kelly Green, Chief Community Relations Officer - South Puget Sound Community College: 4:04
Yeah. So we were, uh we got to see Everett go through it first. Basically, uh, we, do we have a really strong colleagues in the state, and it was really helpful that, you know, we saw it happening in it. Snohomish County and in King County. We're just a couple of county south of there where in Thurston County and it was probably two weeks before we saw her first case here, so we felt like we had a little bit of time. Um, see how the other schools were responding to see how communities were responding and prepare for it. So we very early on, you know, at least started communicating to our faculties, saying, Make sure you have the tools that you need to plan to teach online if it comes to that. We had a little bit of that buffer time, and so we started talking about that early. We didn't have one incident where we had sort of a a scare earlier on for lack of a better term that we had a student basically self diagnose, that they were really sure they had been exposed to COVID. And, um as this has evolved around the country, I'm sure a lot of folks have gone through that. And so we had some emergency cases. Are some emergency communications basically saying they We think maybe this person had it and we know they were on campus, So here's how we're gonna respond. And that was an interesting. So it turned out to be total false alarm. But it was an interesting trial run both for our emergency communications for to kind of give us an idea of how our community was was going to respond how they were feeling, um and Ah, yeah, and everything just continued to roll from there. So we really didn't get a a lot of help from schools who were experiencing things before we did. And Ah, and we felt like we had a pretty good handle on at least what our plans were by the time it got down here,
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 5:50
but just wanted to say thank you for folks like Kelly and our system, and that we had an existing list served for all of our community and technical college communicators and our state. We meet quarterly and the fact that we already knew each other and already had had conversations about emergency communication. I think that that was tremendously helpful in my county and Snohomish County. We also have a network of communicators from the hospital, the sheriff's office, other government hole and of their profits communicators. We get together quarterly, too, and we have, ah, network and of your contact information. And especially now that I'm working from home, Having direct contact information for the folks that I need to reach really quickly has been incredibly helpful. But, yeah, Kelly and the other communicators in the Washington state system it's wonderful to be able to share ideas and examples of the work that they're all doing.
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 6:55
So I'm gonna stay with you for a second, Katherine, tell me, when did it When did the virus first start to impact the college? I mean, beyond going out in helping others and realizing you had to plan? When did it first impact of Everett?
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 7:11
It was really in toward the end of February that we started seeing the immediate impact, and so at Everett Community College. We have had so far two students who have been diagnosed with COVID 19. And so we went from having intensive prep for the week prior to that to really that last week of February 1st week of March, doing an intense amount of communication, especially around the closure of the college for some deep cleaning. So EVCC was closed for about three and a half days for deep cleaning. This came... a decision happened prior To our notification that there have been a student who had been diagnosed. Thankfully, we had materials in place already ready to go and lean on. But there's nothing that could have fully prepared, as I think for needing to have infrastructure in place to really quickly communicate with our students and faculty and staff. Um, especially since we didn't need to close campus during the middle of the day.
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 8:24
So that was toward the end of February.
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 8:27
Yes.
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 8:28
So were you lagging at the same time behind behind Everett, uh, at South Puget Sound?
Kelly Green, Chief Community Relations Officer - South Puget Sound Community College: 8:34
Yeah, we were like, say, Thurston County was a couple of weeks behind, and so we knock on wood. As of today, haven't had a case specifically associate with the college. We're tracking about 25 people who have just self reported either to their supervisors or their faculty, as someone close to them has been tested. So far, none of those tests of most people have come back positive. So for us, that's sort of the next thing that we're preparing for because the state has basically gone into You know, what our governor is calling a stay home order. It takes a little bit of the pressure off in terms of what we need to close campus. What would we do? We're on. We're on a break right now until April 13th in terms of classes. So we're sort of expecting, you know, that our first case connected The campus will come any day now, but where we're at right now, at least very few people are on campus at all. In our response, um, will probably be able to be a little less of you in the schools. Like like Katherine's who have had to endure it while trying, you know, while classes have been in session or while other activity has been going on, you also don't have arms, which I know, Katherine. That Everett does. So when we need to like right now. No, I could probably count on one hand the number of people that are needing to go to campus every day, and so that really helps. He's our response, at least in terms of the operational piece.
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 10:00
You both have classes that have gone from a phrase to a staging to being online. True,
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 10:05
Yes, and that that's where we're at right now. Thankfully, we're on spring break at Everett Community College, and we believe the start of the quarter to April 13th and Kelly mention were under a two week stay home. Stay healthy, ordered by Washington State's governor. And so we definitely had plans not to have people on campus during this time. With a couple of exceptions, we have student housing that's still open, in part because we have our students. There are a number of our students that would have no place else to live if we decided to close student housing. We also have our students food pantry that's available, and we're still trying to provide food assistance some of our early Learning Center families on campus. So it's been a situation that has evolved week by week, and so our very first taste happens on that campus closure. That all happened on March 5th, and we are continuing to try to you adjust for spring quarter with the hope that maybe at some point later in the quarter, we may be ableto have some on person on campus classes using social distancing. But right now, we definitely are planning on having our classes online to the greatest extent possible for the longest amount of time
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 11:31
possible. You've got a little bit of a breather until April 13th.
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 11:36
Yes. Thankfully.
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 11:38
Yeah. How about you, Kelly?
Kelly Green, Chief Community Relations Officer - South Puget Sound Community College: 11:40
Yeah, we did a very similar thing. So that the biggest probably disruption that we unfortunately had to do was that we shortened our winter quarter by one week. So our quarter was scheduled to end on March 27th. And with about a week's notice, we let faculty and students that we were gonna cut that back to March 20th. Um And so for every faculty member, that meant something different in terms of how they were gonna manage finals or grades or or any of that kind of stuff. It was also a big hurdle to help some of them under. And what social distancing man in terms of their plant final that involved having, you know, three students and out of four student table to have a conversation. Um, so? So that was the toughest. But by adorning the corner by pushing the start of spring quarterback, what we did was we really good. We gave faculty two solid weeks the week that would've been finals week and the week that would have been the first week of the next quarter to plan to get things moving online. Um, the biggest, uh, the biggest sort of planning challenge has been, you know, professional technical programs. Welding doesn't really have a lot of theory that could get moved online nursing for, you know, for for a nursing students to get certified when they're done, they're required to have a certain number of clinical hours that, you know, as of today, that can't be done in simulations. So that kind of planning has been the definitely the harder side, because our hope is that this home stay healthy order will be lifted and that we can bring people back, at least in small groups with social distancing. But for those programs that just absolutely have to have hands on learning uh, you know, we're doing our best to plan, but we fully expect that there's gonna be some more, um, shifts and and how we have to work with those students.
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 13:26
You are nodding when she was talking about the about the CTE type programs. What's what's been your experience? Katherine.
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 13:35
I have to take my hat off to our dean's who have been going through lists of classes to try to figure out how we would meet the needs of our professional technical programs. Because, you know, we don't want people welding from home. There's a limit to what can be done without the opportunity to come in to do advanced manufacturing and other education that requires that experiential learning. And so one of the toughest situations we faced was we have an aviation maintenance program, and it's one of the few ization meeting its programs in the country. They have an exceptional program, and those folks are required to do clock hours. It's an FAA requirements, and there's nothing that we could do about that, Um, and if they had not received their number of clock hours that they needed by the end of the quarter, we were told in entire quarter's worth of work would have been lost for those students. Fortunately, the program is hosted in an airplane hangar, and so they did. They're very, very, very best just spread students out. And this was hired to the governor's order shutting down everything and to the greatest extent possible in Washington states that we were able to finish up finals week with those classes getting a chance to wrap up and those students earning credit from winter quarter. But it was a big challenge. Some of the classes that required in person instruction for finals be put in rooms that were twice the size of the normal room for those classes, in order to be able to help people spread out. So hopefully to to
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 15:22
limit
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 15:23
the potential spread.
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 15:25
Let me ask both of you, I mean what I think about taking classes online. I've caught a couple of online classes in from an online facility with the cameras and all of that with my ability to see different locations and all of those things. But most of the colleges I know if they're really lucky they might have 45 facilities at their school. That air really set up for doing kind of online teaching, which means, you know, if that's following true for you, it means you're gonna be dealing with a lot of what zoom or go to meeting or other options. How are you handling that? You know, I know you're in the planning stage now, but people have to be meeting behind the scenes, trying to figure out how you're going to move things online. What are the solutions you're currently looking at? And either one of you?
Kelly Green, Chief Community Relations Officer - South Puget Sound Community College: 16:17
Well, I'll jump in here. Um, and I also just want to get a ton of credit to our deans into our faculty because they started working. You know, even before the quarter was done on this planning on DSO we've we've basically told, uh, we've given direction that our classes are gonna be offered one of three ways. Ex Quarter and the first way is online, which, you know, many of our classes for several years have been offered online. So for faculty who already have all of those plans in place and are comfortable with the technology and the tools, you know, we've just tried to move more and so fully online, you know, to use the fancy term asynchronous that students can just do that when they do that. The second way is is what we're telling our students X virtual. So they'll still me at a certain time with their faculty member that those would leverage a lot of, um, zoom pan Opto A lot of those technologies that for a lot of our faculty, you know, they've used a little bit, but are we have some amazing instructional designers and online learning support folks who have really helped ramp up those efforts and even helped identify. But they would have faculty need for that to happen because our faculty who need laptops and Webcams and, uh, all of those he says, So that's all been happening on dhe then the third way that we're teaching. Next, where is those? You know, face to face or hybrid, where anything that can be done online or virtual like theory is tapping Hang. But if you're gonna, uh, if your classes about baking are certain things that you're just gonna actually have to do and so as much as possible, their front loading the quarter with things that could be done online in the hope that is the quarter goes, um, then they could bring on some of the other plans that they're making of. How do we manage the face to face? It's different for every program. You know. Snow will bring more groups, which means they have to be more faculty have be more flexible on when they'll do it. Um, and for some, it means if they could go to a bigger space and distance for some, it means like welding. Is is another example of a wear personal protective equipment all the time. That includes a respirator in a mask, and they're just going to keep doing that and stay as far away from each other as they can. So, yeah, there's a lot of planning happening around. And and that will still, obviously, just as you know, if the governor's order gets extended if anything else changes. Thankfully, our faculty have just been super willing to be to be flexible and, um and and do what they need to do so that our students can keep learning
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 18:53
Katherine?
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 18:55
Same... over here for our faculty. And we have folks who are adapting courses that have never been online into an online format. And part of the reason the college decided Thio start Spring quarter a week later is because faculty will be working the week of April 6 on their classes and, of course, content and needing to think through with some great support from the instructional designers as well. Their peers. I have absolutely loved saying of faculty members share these great ideas and tools and techniques and things that they have come up with in order to be able to help students who are maybe learning online for the very first time ever a part of their education. And so I've seen some great camaraderie among the faculty members who are learning how to use a room and not so and enhance feature for canvas, which is our unlike firing platform in Washington state. And so big, I think, have been adapting as quickly as they possibly can for their classes. And I think that has it, requires them do some rethinking how they've delivered certain pieces of curriculum and ordered tea, the most effective and so like Hellickson. We have plenty of instructions who I have always taught courses online and so those folks are leading the way, I think, for the rest of the faculty members are mastering some new skills.
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 20:32
So, uh, I'm going to use the bad word. Now brace yourselves. Commencement. What are you doing? What? What have you what steps into your taken?
Kelly Green, Chief Community Relations Officer - South Puget Sound Community College: 20:46
Katherine. Go.
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 20:47
That's still under discussion,
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 20:49
Kelly?
Kelly Green, Chief Community Relations Officer - South Puget Sound Community College: 20:51
That's still under discussion.
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 20:52
Oh,
Kelly Green, Chief Community Relations Officer - South Puget Sound Community College: 20:53
We have the unique situation here where our commencement is not held on our campus. And starting last year, we actually partnered with a regional four year university, the Evergreen State College, to do our ceremonies back to back because we doing for similar amounts of people physically, they're in close proximity, and they just have capacity that we don't have. So, um, we're in conversations with them about They also haven't announced what there if they've made a decision or what their plans are yet. So we're in discussion with them, um, and so we'll have to factor in both whether or not they're willing to host and whether or not we figure like it's a good time to bring 4000 people together. I mean, as you know, that the impact for our students it's tough in such a special moment for a lot of our student, and it's the culmination of a lot of work. It's a big deal for families. It's a big I mean, this is it. This is an achievement that we want to be honored. And we want our approach to have that recognition. So balancing that with the reality that I don't think we're gonna tell Grandma that she should trouble And then when she does travel, she shouldn't hug her brand kid. I don't think any of us have the stomach for that. So, uh so, yeah, we are still in discussion, but that's gonna be a very difficult decision. Either way, that we go
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 22:13
and I agree with Kelly in regard. Thio, we want to give people that moment. Pam, I still remember you talking about the moment of your mom finding out that she had been admitted to college. And I love commencement. Uh, my my favorite today of the year to be able to see people get together and celebrate like that. Um e I think that every community colleges talking about a number of options possible. You delaying commencement. I really appreciate our student life, folks. They're working with students to think about it. If we did have to not hold the ceremony in June, what we would do! They're talking about a celebration box that we might be able to send people were talking about. How do we include video? How do we maybe do something online? And we wanted to do some of the pieces, no matter what we wanted to do Some of the pieces that we no matter a lot, You don't like the commencement program so we can print a commencement program still and recognize our graduates. And we can think about some other ways to publicly acknowledge our grabs and their success. We're just trying to be creative in figuring out how to do that.
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 23:33
So for both of you, this isn't your first rodeo. You've both been doing your jobs for for a long enough. But that, uh, you've won your spurs having lived through other fun events, what has surprised you the most about what's going on right now? And it could be it could be, Ah, your college, your leadership, your community. It doesn't matter what what is the thing where you look at this and you go? Well, I didn't see that coming.
Kelly Green, Chief Community Relations Officer - South Puget Sound Community College: 24:03
Uh, for me. Um, So I have seen over the last few years, um, are our president and vice president of instruction really build a very strong relationship with faculty That I know is not the case, you know, at every school right now. But but just really Ah, um, kind of a collegial, a respectful attitude. And so what's really surprised me about this, Not, I don't know why it surprised me, but it has just how much everyone has been just willing to step up, keep students first and do what we need to do for students and faculty have been a huge part of that in our our vice president. You know, I've been in rooms where she's just been able to say to them, uh, our students are stressed. Our students are confused and they're looking to you to faculty. Our answer is because you're the people that they know. So this can't be You know it as much as my shop is working to communicate, and the school is working to communicate. The reality is, you know, it's our faculty and our advisors that our students are going to do so to see them er in the midst of all the stress that we're all going through and the stress that they're all going through, you know, really be willing to step up and take on that role and Ah, and just be there for our students has been really for me, just amazing to watch and really touching to see that happen.
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 25:24
I have to agree with that, too. It's it's great to see people come together. I'm reminded, though, of Interact's cat herding poster. When I think about sometimes how it's been under normal circumstances to do communication and marketing for our campus too soon. Faculty and staff, we have a lot of people I'm usually wanted to you be involved in communication. I've been very thankful that our college president early on a Dr Derek Gerri Willis, we agreed to some principles and revert to communication and the president's office will be the main disseminator of information and that college advancement will be in charge of internal and external communications planning, which means that uh, unlike sometimes prior and under different circumstances would normally be more understandable. We do have much more centralized communications because we're trying extremely, extremely hard. It to ensure that we're providing accurate, consistent information to our students, faculty and staff instead of everybody, in some cases doing their own communication. We really are trying Thio, coordinate in a way that I I haven't seen that before and I am very, very grateful for And I think that also, I'm particularly appreciative of communication being involved early in the process and that we have been involved and are in the room all the way along. For every one of these discussions for every one of these pieces are going out for every part of the process. We've been there, and folks, I feel very appreciated on my campus. Folks have been, as does my team. Folks have been really great about recognizing right now that communication is one of the best tools that we have to be able to support people through a very tough time.
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 27:31
You know, you're you're in a crisis communications footing, which is that that's exactly what happens when you're in that spot. You're going to say something, Kelly?
Kelly Green, Chief Community Relations Officer - South Puget Sound Community College: 27:40
Yeah, I was just gonna add in, you know, one of the challenges. So when we have done, you know, actual sort of emergency notifications are sort of formal messaging of like, Here's a significant impact of the college that's been consistent for us between faculty and staff and students. But what, what's coming up now that we're sort of I don't want to say we're settling into the new normal. But as we're trying to, you know, just move forward with remote operations with remote plans. One of the things that we've come up against, um, that I think we'll just change how we do things going forward is that we've had to send slightly different messages to faculty and staff and two students because their language we can use with faculty and staff that doesn't make sense or matter to students. And so more often we had a staff and faculty right to us and say, Well, you told me this, but you told students this. It literally be. You know, we're not using the word synchronous and asynchronous with students because that's just crazy. That's not a word out of that matters a lot to faculty and so that my office has spent a lot of time juggling that, which was kind of new to us of like well, then don't read what we're sending two students just read what were something to you know. That's just that's one thing that we're still navigating. Especially like a sales were kind of settling in on plans going forward. Um, trying to be clear without being, you know, 100% consistent between both arms because they need to hear different things.
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 29:02
That has been a challenge for us. Well, we wanted to give faculty at the dean's request, and I completely understand whether where they were coming from on this some time to start thinking about plans for spring quarter prior to an anthem to students that about our switch to, uh, almost entirely online education for spring quarter. We're doing the same thing to as Kelly is a South Puget sound of front loading lecturer and other things that can be done online with the hope that perhaps things might be better in the future. So we'll be able to do some labs and other activities later on. But we sent out a communication to faculty members and said, Hey, this is what's going on. Please work with your dean. We're going to send out an all college announcement on Friday and what happened, unfortunately, was that, I think, with good intent. But some faculty members decided to share that information publicly and with students. So I had our student newspaper calling and saying, Hey, I received a copy of your communications that will be online for spring. And could you please confirm this and what's going on with that? And so we can't We don't have the tools to have an all instruction meeting right now. Even we haven't even had something where we've had hundreds of people like Call in or video conference, and we're doing the best we can with the resources that we have. If you didn't want to give people a heads up that this is coming at the same time, I think that that may not be possible in the future, really, that for issuing communications faculty members that that vacation will very likely get students really quickly
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 30:52
because challenge it sounds like that was the challenge that that balancing ah, the internal with it, the professional internal message with the internal student message sounds like that's that's always going to be a little bit of a problem. Any other big challenges that air that are you're you're working through with your team or your college.
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 31:17
I think that the lack of the information sometimes is a significant challenge, that we do not have all the answers. And we don't know what is coming in the future either. And so it many times as you possibly say, Hey, we're working on the folks were trying to get an answer for you. We're not sure where this is going to land in still difficult. And I, recognizing that I'm trying to be sympathetic and understanding to our faculty and staff, really want answers right now and that sometimes we just don't have an answer yet about what's going on. I would also say that for us, I am insanely thankful for our brilliant colleagues over at the health research. But at the same time they are overwhelmed. Uh, and even back at the beginning of March, they had so many cases in Snohomish County that way, I just felt incredibly grateful to get any pieces of their time. But they were really tough Thio get ahold of because they were trying to juggle so varying many things. I am thankful that our county scent of a Joint Information Center really quickly and communicating with our Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management folks and other folks. But I think that having understanding for other people who are planning to deal with this is that I expect not to get answers from your health district immediately. Um, again, I love the health district, folks. They're doing amazing. It's just that they are not able with the volume of cases that they have to be able to provide the kind of ongoing and detailed assistance that you might want. Also, you may not get clear. Answer sometimes about what the college is supposed to do under certain circumstances. I think we're in pretty early on a bet. We would need to rely on our Washington state Department of Health local health district, CDC. But there are some decisions that needed to come down to our college president and leadership to be able to make the call.
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 33:35
Uh, Kelly.
Kelly Green, Chief Community Relations Officer - South Puget Sound Community College: 33:37
Yeah, I I would agree with all of that. We're certainly experiencing that as well. You know, all of our health systems and public health agencies are just everybody's overwhelmed by this. And so, uh, you know, it's very understandable that, um each. You know, my needs are not their first priority Crazy. So I think juggling that the other thing that, um, that we're, uh, struggling with a little bit. And I apologize. A moment ago, I had a much I had an answer that has now slipped my mind because, uh, you know, I'm operating on not a lot of sleep, but, um, you know, there's challenges that we all see coming from this for our students, as much as we feel like every decision we're making is is what's best gonna be best for our students. What's gonna ensure longevity? What's gonna keep their benefits coming? You know, we see a need that we're not gonna be able to fill or that we don't have an answer for yet. And and that's really hard for a lot of people, you know, we're already getting the end of the quarter is 2.5 weeks away, and we're already getting I don't have a laptop. How do I get a laptop from step ins? You know, I don't have good Internet access. I don't have whatever it is. My family members have to be home. And so you know while we all deal with that and a normal quarter. Everything is so hiding right now. Um and so, uh, feeling like we're doing our best to respond to those needs. But also knowing that there are certain needs we're just not sure we're gonna be able to respond to is, um is, I think, exhausting for some of the, especially some of the executive leadership as we're trying to work through this And I know faculty, you're failing it, and I know we're feeling it. So So I think that's been, um, are just, you know, feeling like we're making good decisions every day. We're moving forward. But there's just always things in the back of our minds. Uh, we wish we could be doing more about.
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 35:28
I also would note that at least for us, too. I mean, we've been dealing with us for a while, and so I I'm extremely impressed about everyone's of dedication and ours that they have put in. But it has been at least a month of this work and pretty intense work in that. And Amy's I am concerned about my colleagues and us wearing out over thing. This will be a long time. I agree. You can't what you kind of set in the previous podcasts of this. I think this will be a lot all the time horizon and trying to figure out how we are able to make that true. Make it through because I think I think bid Everybody can probably do crisis communication for a short period of time, maybe even a month. We could get through working. I worked 19 days in a row as this many of my colleagues, Uh and I think we could probably get through that if one we knew what the endpoint waas and two. We knew that there it would be a point that we would have these answers. I think that trying to to pace ourselves as well as ensuring that are calling take a break and fully unplug, which is still hard. I'm still not saying people from Everett do that. I don't I don't think anyone's really standing down because it feels like you can't yet. We're trying to make people take a break. And so I think that that's the thing that I'm probably most concerned about. For my I have the most talented communications colleagues ever at E V C C. And I hated. I hated having to ask them for help. But I made the call on a Saturday because if I didn't do that, I do underwater extremely fast. And we set up shifts that we figured out how to do social media motor turning in communication. Um, and I guess, as a side note for us in terms of information and other challenge was everybody wanted to know, for the students had been diagnosed, everyone wanted to know where exactly they had been minute by minute on campus, probably with a mad, too. And, you know, a time clock. We, um, not only well able t provide that information healthy asked at that point that their disease investigators are epidemiologist, that they asked, be able to have them do their work, including contacting people who would have been in close contact with those students. And that was really frustrating for students and faculty members who really wanted to know in order to be built a faster on level of risk.
Kelly Green, Chief Community Relations Officer - South Puget Sound Community College: 38:14
And I think that's a really important thing for states that are just sort of just heading into, you know, the first part of the curve of this is that, like, that idea of notifications has been really challenging both for us. To understand in our campus, understand? Is is at what point would we tell you a person who works near you or went to your office or whatever was potentially diagnosed? And the reality is, we as a school can't do that. It's the House department, you know, it's the public health agency that will say, you know, they sit down with the person they walk through there, you know what they've been doing for the last period, time and identify. Okay, these with the people we think could have been exposed and we're going to notify them. But yeah, the first question across campuses. Well, where were they? Were they in my class? Were they in my lab? Did they go to the one stop? Did they go to the CAF for you and so? So balancing. That has been really tough because people, for very good reason, want that information and we don't have it. Nor could we probably share it if we didn't have it
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 39:12
1,000,000 years ago. I was in charge of Girl Scout public relations and marketing when we had what we lovingly called a great cookie crisis when cookies were tainted and there were there were Girl Scout councils all across the country that went bankrupt. This is right kind of after the Tylenol scare. So they happened kind of in quick succession. And to your point, Katherine, um, I worked for months with like, no sleep three hours, front to back. And at the end of it, I passed out. They took money, the ambulance, they thought I had epilepsy. And I didn't. It was called let me think exhaustion. So, um, do it. You've done some smart things about putting people on on schedules, allowing people to have some days off about, you know, scheduling time when you're really are out of the loop so that you have a few minutes thio be with family. I've got a podcast on on some self care because I thought, knowing how dedicated folks are you goingto you're used to that kind of. I worked really hard for a month, and this will be over, right? Most most crises about a month is is the length of time that you have to really be on the bubble. And this isn't gonna be that one, because I don't believe we will be back into packed churches on April on Easter. It would if it were true than I will celebrate. But, um, if this goes three months, six months, seven months, nine months, or in the case of the what is it the Spanish flu? It lasted a year. So think about what that that means, Because you if you get run down, you're more likely to get ill. And that's serves no one. Right? Um, riddle me this. You know what? Is there anything? I mean, the irony is you guys are the old hands and it's only been six weeks, right? You
Kelly Green, Chief Community Relations Officer - South Puget Sound Community College: 41:07
might think you are. You're the only one who's the old hand. And she's been out of two weeks longer than me. You're the
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 41:13
old veterans, you know, the grizzled war veterans returning to read into the the fresh faced young kids. And, you know, the irony is six weeks, right? My question to you is is there anything you wish you had known? Um, now that you didn't know at the very beginning that you would have done something differently. What you know that you if you knew it. Now, uh, you know, if you know it, then you go. There's a different way to handle this.
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 41:43
So, uh, at EVCC we needed to let people know that our campus was closing in the middle of the day. And so we did do that, but we didn't include a full explanation about what? The reasoning behind that and what was going on. I am until about I want to say about it a minute after we issued Hey, campuses closing. Releasing it was within about 1/2 an hour. So it was coming up quickly. And unfortunately, as a result, there were people who there's a great deal of fear and there were people who are really concerned about what was going on. They thought perhaps somebody had died. I thought. I mean, every rumor mill is is a crazy thing. I issuing that Hey, we're closing for cleaning message without deeper explanation that was available on our website, which is typically how we've done those communications in the past. Shall we have a home? 100 60 characters sent a text message. Sometimes we're not gonna be able to give you all the details there, but, um, having them messages not ready at the same time, I wish we could have done that that differently in order to try to allay fears from people who were very, very concerned. Um, about why the college was closing in the middle of the day. And at that point at the point we're closing, we actually had not had any diagnosis on. So we also became aware of that same day that we have a student who had been diagnosed. That was a lot of concern about people thinking, Oh, hey, the college knew this information and they didn't tell us. And so, trying to make people aware of what the process looks like from behind the scenes and communication about this is how we do things when we have something happened. Um, if we had had the ability to build more of that in advance, I would have appreciated that. And so those of you who do have time available to take this opportunity to say Okay, so here are the thieves. There are considerations that this is how will communicate with you. These air channels that will share this information. And this is what we can and can't tell you, Because early on, we need communicated with folks about, you know, for, but it's still a thing, and you still need to comply with that. And so their information that we're not gonna be able to give you. And then also we are following the directives of our district and for our entire communities, public health. We will continue to follow those directives. And so I think if we had had the opportunity, you too. Maybe that the table a little bit at the beginning, That might have been helpful, but we're pretty quickly off to the races.
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 44:42
Yeah, Kelly?
Kelly Green, Chief Community Relations Officer - South Puget Sound Community College: 44:44
Yeah, I think that Ah, I would echo a lot of that. And this is gonna sound like a really in the weeds. Answer. But we spent an awful lot of time on this. Uh, it would have been great. And so again, folks who have time to sit down and have a good understanding of how our custodial department currently cleans Like what? What is it that they do on a daily basis? What do they do? Do they disinfect? Do they vacuum? Do they? What spaces do they touch or what? Ah ah, you know, door handles that kind of things. Do they regularly touch what will be, you know, in response to these situations and then where their holes? Because we had to juggle as it was coming out. And so, like I said, we had we had a scare, right? And so what? We pulled people was, uh, Estonia was going to disinfect the spaces overnight. What does that mean? What is it? What that means to me what that means to somebody else. And so, like I say that it's kind of a a smoking, but we got so many questions around that that would have been great for just asked to do this. Understand? This is what's normal. This is what's different now. Or this is what's been increased because to just say it, clean or deep, disinfect in a time where people are so afraid of everything they're touching, um proved to be a really big challenge. We got hit with a lot of those questions. We also, you know, I talked about holes. We also identify holes like what we realized pretty quickly was, there's nobody on campus, no department whose whose job it waas to regularly clean T boards in a computer lab because they're not playing detective for good reason. They don't want to use their chemicals and electronics on our I t department doesn't spend time wandering around campus cleaning stuff they're doing I t things. And so that was, Ah, hole that we you know, we very quickly came up with a solution. We figured out how to deal with it, but it's like, uh, that would have been good to know before people were hitting us up on social media Being like, Hey, is somebody sneezed on this computer next to me? When is it gonna be cleaned?
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 46:46
Those are those are
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 46:47
One of the things that was
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 46:48
go ahead
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 46:49
sorry Pam,
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 46:50
no go ahead.
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 46:50
I was just gonna say one of the things that did work out well for us that we did do early on recommend for other folks is we establish a share to drive a COVID 19 shared drive for information with different parts. So every piece of communication we're sending out we have on that shared to drive every piece of social media posting. We have a media live. We have a social media log. We have a list of unanswered questions we have are f a Q. And we have documented those changes for the F A Q over time because we had to change incorrect information online. And you have a place where everyone can access a shared document instead of I didn't get the email or I'm not sure I'm looking at the right version of the word document of this that have been incredibly helpful. I mean, sure, you're gonna be 15 people look at your document, maybe at the same time. And a group editing it is sometimes a challenge. But being able to get as many people the same information as quickly as possible have been so incredibly helpful.
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 48:07
Well, actually, you're both going exactly where I'm hoping to go, Which is what other advice would you have for people are going into the curve? Kelly
Kelly Green, Chief Community Relations Officer - South Puget Sound Community College: 48:16
Ah, so much. I mean, I would say, um you know, pull out your crisis communication plan, start building some templates. So one thing that really helped for us is before, um, you know, before we started having to cancel events before we started having t change the end of the quarter, you know, myself in my communications team all had a shared folder of template, so that if any one of us were out, if any one of us were unavailable, we would have not ready to go with, you know, minor edits, whatever the details would be. But we had such a sense of relief once we have that. And of course, there were things that popped up that we didn't expect, but at least for those really major things, you know, when we're gonna have to start canceling events If we're gonna change the quarter, if the college, if we have someone on campus, I'm diagnosed if we have, you know, walking through those sort of like Lee's areas, that would need a big response, you know, just taking the time to have that ready. I felt like a big lift at the time, but it has certainly helped a lot to just have those at the ready, and then all we're doing, you know, when things up up so quickly, because it's those first couple of weeks and capture to know you can attest to this too. It was every day something big was coming every single day. There was no let up And so being able to go back and take the communications when we had a really clear head, um, and leverage those was for our team was a huge help.
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 49:44
Anything bad? Katherine.
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 49:46
Yeah. So first, like, I definitely agree with Kelly. I'm really glad that we had some opportunity to do some work ahead of time. Some other tidbits of advice, but I would offer is, uh, to plan on staying in your lane to focus on what your college is doing, not providing health advice. So we have links to the CDC and this home is Health District, kind of Washington State Department of Health and some other information that we put out there We did not want to be or pretends to be or appear to be an expert in medicine. So we are relying on our external partners to be the content expert on the virus spread of the virus and other medical matters. And our communication has almost entirely focused on whatever community college is doing. I would also say that killing me college is it's awesome that we have some resources to serve our students who are learning English or speak who speak many other languages. Sometimes there are folks in your community that do not have that thinking the same access to resources. And I think that thinking about how you're going to communicate with those populations in coordination with your partners in your community, that that is really important. Additionally, we started pretty early on collecting a list of things like what clinical site we're students at for health sciences? Because in Washington state, a key source of the outbreak was in a hospital and long term care facilities in the Kirkland area. And so we wanted to know if we needed to find out really quickly where our students were at Freighter Clinical. We wanted to have a list ready to go and the contact information available for the students. So if we needed to be able to provide that information to the health district, who that we would have that ready. We also made sure that we have people who had access to student records from home and other places again in case we needed to provide a look class list which we did have to do to an epidemiologist. And so we also have contact lists for our students in student housing are early learning center students into we're thinking about How do we provide communication that is specific to those populations that have need? Need?
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 52:23
Well, you guys, you're rock stars and you're on the front line, and I can't think of any two people I'd rather have there because I know that you're you're No, I I know you gave me that look like Like what the hell? You're putting me on the front line? No. You know your stuff. And, uh uh, to have you guys giving this kind of advice I think you're going to save some college is a lot of pain. And for that, I deeply thank you. Um, that's it for now. I really appreciate the time. Everyone, um and I will let you know if I or interact can be of any help with you to you at all. Please reach out. We will. The meter isn't running. Um, we will totally do whatever we can do to help.
Kelly Green, Chief Community Relations Officer - South Puget Sound Community College: 53:03
Thank you. Well, I really appreciate it. All the information you all have shared the weapon. Our last week was fantastic. Um, see, I just appreciate the time and opportunity and you know it All stress people are gonna need you coming out of this were already being asked to make sure our all enrollment efforts are still ramped up. So we're dealing with crisis, and we're we're still dealing with, uh, you know, doing what we can for enrollment. So not just to say thank you.
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 53:29
Take care Katherine
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 53:30
Same here. We appreciate it. And, uh, yeah, we are trying to remind folks that the college has been through some really tough times before. EVCC opened in September of 1941 and a couple days after that. There was a citywide vote to see if that college can continue using the converted elementary school that it was located. And and so they survived that. And then, of course, December 1941 came right on. After that. They survived that, and we're trying to support the folks in our community. Our students are incredibly resilient, and I fully agree with what Kelly said is they need it now, and they will need us more in the future.
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 54:13
Well, and two things. One, this too shall pass. And two, if you're not on the leadership team. You guys should be and anybody listening to my voice. If you're a marketing PR person and you're not on the leadership team, tell them I told them to talk to their mother, and I said So Take care, everybody.
Kelly Green, Chief Community Relations Officer - South Puget Sound Community College: 54:31
Thanks, Pam.
Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations - Everett Community College: 54:32
Thank you.
Dr. Pamela Cox-Otto, Ph.D., CEO - Interact Communications: 54:33
Ciou.
Announcer - Interact Communications: 54:34
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