Burassi is an NYC-based lifestyle brand that represents the art of creating something out of nothing. For Gregory Matarazzo, that something started when he used the $2,000 he made working at a pizzeria to print 175 screen-printed shirts he designed. What began as a dorm room operation in 2012 has grown to sales from all 50 states and 40+ countries. “Realize that you don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start in order to someday become great,” he says.

BURASSI.COM

Agreement offers seamless academic transition for students

NEW YORK and PLEASANTVILLE, NY (Dec. 18, 2020) – Bard Early College (BEC), a division of Bard College that offers tuition-free college credits to high school students at its network of schools throughout New York City, Newark, Baltimore, Cleveland, New Orleans and Washington D.C., has signed a new joint admission agreement with Pace University, allowing students who earn an associate’s degree through Bard Early College to matriculate into Pace with junior standing.

Leaders from Pace and BEC made the announcement on Friday, Dec. 18, 2020 during a virtual meeting of the two schools – and it also comes after similar agreements have been signed between Pace and community colleges in Westchester, Rockland and Suffolk counties.

As part of the agreement, BEC students who graduate with college credits and earn an Associate of Arts (A.A.) degree with a minimum grade point average of 2.5 will be guaranteed acceptance to Pace University. Students graduating from BEC will have their lower level general education/core requirements waived if they transfer to Pace.

For the transfer students, a maximum of 68 credits will be applied toward the completion of the relevant Pace Bachelor’s degree programs. Additionally, Pace is establishing the Pace University-Bard Early College Scholarship, which offers up to $25,000 to eligible transfer students who graduate with a GPA of 3.2 or higher on either Pace University campus in Westchester or New York City.

“Students in the Bard Early College program are some of the most ambitious students in the country, eager to start their college education before they’ve completed their high school diplomas,” said Pace President Marvin Krislov. “We’re very pleased to provide them an opportunity to continue their students and earn a four-year degree at Pace, and we know they’ll make invaluable contributions to our community.”​

During the virtual meeting of the schools, President Krislov praised BEC and its students, many of whom are historically first-generation college students. He said he was impressed with the fact that 75 percent of last year’s class completed high school with an associate’s degree and 60 or more college credits, and said this agreement with BEC fits squarely with Pace’s mission of Opportunitas, or creating opportunities, and its long tradition of providing access to a college education for ambitious, hard-working students.

Additionally, at Pace, President Krislov said prospective students have more than 150 majors and programs to choose from; opportunities to get involved in over 100 student clubs and organizations; a choice of two campuses – one in lower Manhattan and another in Pleasantville – and can enjoy what campus life has to offer.

“This agreement fits squarely with our mission,” Krislov said. “We’re proud to offer this pathway to a bachelor’s degree for these young associate graduates.”

Bard College President Leon Botstein spoke of the high caliber of students at BEC, and said Pace University’s partnership showed that the program is working. Agreements like this one should be more universally embraced as they show respect for students’ hard work, time, energy and resources, he noted.

“These are very motivated students with a tremendous sense of purpose and a good track record,” President Botstein said. “Pace’s cooperation vindicates what we are trying to do at Bard, and the recognition is very important to us … We are totally thrilled this has come to pass.”

Dr. Dumaine Williams, Vice President and Dean of the Early College said: "The Dual Admissions Agreement, with the prestigious Pace University - Bard Early College Scholarship, is a clear, tangible and powerful articulation of the institutions' shared commitment to expanding opportunities for students to access, afford and succeed in college.”

Bard students committing to Pace will have access to academic counselors to maximize course offerings and to ensure a smooth transfer process. Transfer students will also be able to tap into thousands of internship and career placement opportunities offered through Pace’s Department of Career Services. Historically, Pace has some of the strongest job placement outcomes among undergraduate and graduate students. It’s one of the many reasons that Pace is ranked number one in upward economic mobility among four-year private universities according to a study conducted by Harvard University’s Opportunity Insights.

BEC provides essential access to a serious college course of study to a diverse group of young people. These satellite campuses of Bard College are operated through partnerships with public school systems – tuition free -- and empower high school students, particularly those at risk of not completing postsecondary education, to access, afford, and complete college so that they are prepared to contribute to civic life and a range of professional pathways. BEC simultaneously works to influence and lead a growing early college movement focused on equity and excellence.

“This agreement with Bard Early College not only provides students with opportunities to pursue higher education and to reach their potential, but it also creates a clear pathway for a person to achieve their goals and transform their life now and for years to come,” said Pace Provost Vanya Quiñones. “This agreement aligns with both of our school’s missions and we are eager to be partnering with BEC to make it a reality.”

About Pace University

Pace University has a proud history of preparing its diverse student body for a lifetime of professional success as a result of its unique program that combines rigorous academics and real-world experiences. Pace is ranked the #1 private, four-year college in the nation for upward economic mobility by Harvard University’s Opportunity Insights, evidence of the transformative education the University provides. From its beginnings as an accounting school in 1906, Pace has grown to three campuses, enrolling 13,000 students in bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral programs in more than 150 majors and programs, across a range of disciplines: arts, sciences, business, health care, technology, law, education, and more. The university also has one of the most competitive performing arts programs in the country. Pace has a signature, newly renovated campus in New York City, located in the heart of vibrant Lower Manhattan, next to Wall Street and City Hall, and two campuses in Westchester County, New York: a 200-acre picturesque Pleasantville Campus and a Law School in White Plains. Follow us on Twitter or on our news website.

Agreement offers seamless academic transition for students

NEW YORK and PLEASANTVILLE, NY (December 14, 2020) – Suffolk County Community Collegeand Pace University have signed a new joint admission agreement, allowing students who complete their studies at SUNY Suffolk to matriculate into Pace with junior standing.

Presidents, provosts and administrators from Pace and SUNY Suffolk made the announcement on Monday, December 14, 2020 during a virtual meeting of the two schools.

As part of the agreement, SUNY Suffolk students who graduate from more than 30 programs with an Associate of Arts (A.A.), Associate of Science (A.S.) or Associate of Applied Science (A.A.S.) degree and a minimum grade point average of 2.5 will be guaranteed acceptance to Pace University. Students graduating from SUNY Suffolk will have their lower level general education/core requirements waived if they transfer to Pace.

For the transfer students, a maximum of 68 credits will be applied toward the completion of the relevant Pace Bachelor’s degree programs. Additionally, Pace will offer scholarships of up to $25,000 to eligible transfer students who graduate with a GPA of 3.2 or higher on either Pace University campus in Westchester or New York City. The schools are also part of The New York State Presidential Transfer Scholarship program, which offers full scholarships to eligible students.

“We are excited to join with SUNY Suffolk to provide the opportunity for their students to pursue dual admission and start on a path to a four-year degree,” said Pace President Marvin Krislov. “This agreement builds on and strengthens our longstanding partnership with Suffolk, and we’re looking forward to welcoming their hard-working, ambitious graduates to Pace.”

During the virtual meeting of the schools, President Krislov noted that SUNY Suffolk graduates have more than 150 majors and programs to choose from at Pace; opportunities to get involved in over 100 student clubs and organizations; a choice of two campuses – one in lower Manhattan and another in Pleasantville – and can enjoy what campus life has to offer.

“Suffolk County Community College is about creating opportunities for its students. With this important Joint Admissions Program, Suffolk students will be guaranteed admission to Pace University upon meeting the qualifications,” said Suffolk County Community College Interim President Louis J. Petrizzo. “This initiative is about providing Suffolk students with all the possibilities an outstanding University has to offer and we could not be more pleased that Pace University has agreed to allow our students this opportunity.”

SUNY Suffolk students committing to Pace will be able to maximize course offerings and ensure a smooth transfer process. Transfer students will also be able to tap into thousands of internship and career placement opportunities offered through Pace’s Department of Career Services. Historically, Pace has some of the strongest job placement outcomes among undergraduate and graduate students. It’s one of the many reasons that Pace is ranked number one in upward economic mobility among four-year private universities according to a study conducted by Harvard University’s Opportunity Insights.

With approximately 25,000 students, Suffolk County Community College is the largest community college in the SUNY (State University of New York) system. It has three campuses – in Selden, Brentwood and Riverhead -- and offers more than 100 degree and certificate options.

For Pace junior Reynaldo Dallas, who graduated from SUNY Suffolk with a 3.9 GPA, the transition to Pace University has been smooth. In his remarks during the meeting, Dallas, a recipient of the New York State Presidential Scholarship, thanked professors and administrators at both schools for being supportive, encouraging and creating a path for his academic success.

“I’m beyond grateful for having this opportunity,” he said. “All of my credits transferred and the process has been seamless.”

“Providing students with opportunities to pursue higher education, reach their potential and achieve their goals are guiding principles at Pace,” said Pace Provost Vanya Quiñones. “This agreement with SUNY Suffolk will be a transformative experience for students and creates a clear pathway for success. We’re eager to be partnering with our Long Island colleagues to make this agreement a reality.”

Dr. Paul M. Beaudin, vice president academic and student affairs, said: “Suffolk provides opportunities for every student, for those who are seeking immediate training to enter the workforce, for those who seek to get a degree which will lead to a career, and for those who are seeking to complete their degree and then to transfer to the best local and national colleges for the baccalaureate degree. Our new joint admissions agreement with Pace University is an affirmation of Pace’s positive view of the quality of our degree and creates a pathway to a premier institution that provides students with amazing formal and informal learning experiences. We want to partner with such institutions for the benefit of our students.”

About Pace University

Pace University has a proud history of preparing its diverse student body for a lifetime of professional success as a result of its unique program that combines rigorous academics and real-world experiences. Pace is ranked the #1 private, four-year college in the nation for upward economic mobility by Harvard University’s Opportunity Insights, evidence of the transformative education the University provides. From its beginnings as an accounting school in 1906, Pace has grown to three campuses, enrolling 13,000 students in bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral programs in more than 150 majors and programs, across a range of disciplines: arts, sciences, business, health care, technology, law, education, and more. The university also has one of the most competitive performing arts programs in the country. Pace has a signature, newly renovated campus in New York City, located in the heart of vibrant Lower Manhattan, next to Wall Street and City Hall, and two campuses in Westchester County, New York: a 200-acre picturesque Pleasantville Campus and a Law School in White Plains. Follow us on Twitter or on our news website.

About SUNY Suffolk Community College

Suffolk County Community College is the State University of New York’s (SUNY) largest community college, enrolling more than 25,000 for-credit students and over 10,000 non-credit students. The College offers more than 100 degree and certificate program options.

Prolific writer. Accomplished actor and filmmaker. Emmy-award winner.

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It’s hard to summarize Neil Garguilo’s work in any neat and organized way, but such is often the case with creative genius. Today, he is best known for using humor to call out systemic inequality and stereotypes in entertainment.

A showrunner for the TV series MOCKpocalpyse, founding member of the improv comedy group Dr. God (behind the 2015 horror-comedy Bloodsucking Bastards), Garguilo is also co-creator, showrunner, and star of the Syfy series Hell Den, a dystopian social satire which combines original animation with old, live-action and re-dubbed clips, and provides the audience with an opportunity to directly consider how messages that foster prejudice can live on through generations.

One of his proudest accomplishments is his Funny or Die series, Brainwashed by Toons. For this, he co-wrote songs about the normalization of bigotry and sexism over the past century, resulting in a 2020 Daytime Emmy win for Outstanding Original Song and a nomination for Outstanding Writing for a Special Class Series.

For Garguilo, the work is personal.

“I am of Puerto Rican and Italian descent, and in my life, I’ve been in rooms where people didn’t realize my Hispanic background, and they’ve said some very ignorant stuff that comes from a very bad place,” Garguilo said.

Originally from central New Jersey, Garguilo knew from a very young age that he wanted to work in entertainment. As a young boy, he was obsessed with SNL and Comedy Central, but didn’t really know the specific path to follow, so—like a true student of the liberal arts—he immersed himself in everything he could.

The first on his father’s side of the family to go to college, and second-generation on his mother’s, Garguilo’s undergraduate years were formative.

“[College] molded me most by providing a better understanding of what I can achieve,” Garguilo said.

As a student at Pace, he performed standup as a side gig at the New York Comedy Club, and, in 2003, discovered the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, an alternative comedy troupe in New York City that incubated the talent of many of today’s well-known stars, including those made famous on SNL. It was here that he fell in love with improv, and has been performing in this genre, as well as sketch comedy, in the Los Angeles comedy scene for more than fifteen years.

When asked if he has any future projects up his sleeve, Garguilo, of course, said “tons.”

“If you’re a show creator or feature film writer, you need to constantly be developing. Between feature film, scripted television, and alternative television, I currently have thirteen shows pitching and dozens on my development slate,” Garguilo said. “There are a few exciting things coming up in 2021, but I’ll be assassinated if I speak about them publicly, and being assassinated really puts the brakes on development!”

What is certain, is that one of Garguilo’s goals as he moves forward in his work is to continue his efforts to normalize new messages that serve to tear down stereotypes and promote diversity and equity.

In offering advice for students, he said, “Take advantage of your internships. Also, take an improv class!”

Eight Pace Fellows Selected from 15,000 Applicants; Students Taking Action to Advance UN Goals

NEW YORK (December 10, 2020) – Eight Pace University students recently completed a semester-long leadership development program that convenes, challenges, and celebrates student leadership worldwide. As members of the Millennium Fellows Class of 2020, they are part of a global network of scholars who are working on local solutions to some of the world’s most pressing environmental, health, and societal challenges.

The selective Fellowship, a partnership of the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) and Millennium Campus Network (MCN) since 2018, included more than 1,400 students from 80 campuses across 20 countries, including Nigeria, Nepal, Pakistan and the United States.

As one of the speakers at the recent graduation ceremony, Pace President Marvin Krislov congratulated the Millennium Fellows and noted that he was proud of their important work.

“You have made a remarkable commitment to be the change you want to see in the world,” Krislov said to the fellows in a video message. “I am so proud of your accomplishments.”

The Pace student-led projects focused on addressing global problems close to home, such as promoting sustainable living practices on campus; reducing the university’s carbon footprint; raising awareness about the dangers and proximity of human trafficking in the region; and cultivating relationships between local farms and communities to reduce contamination of our waterways, among other empowering projects focusing on peace, justice, and providing quality education to at-risk students.

“In leading projects that focus on global challenges such as ensuring clean drinking water for all people, stopping human trafficking, reducing waste, developing alternative sources of energy and educating vulnerable populations, Pace’s students have shown they are serious about taking on some our world’s most serious problems,” said Sue Maxam, EdD, assistant provost for special projects and retention initiatives. “I couldn’t be prouder of our students as they are truly inspirational change agents who are determined to make a difference on campus and beyond.”

There are many components to the program, including that students had to develop projects at their respective institution and communities, while communicating and collaborating with fellows from all over the world. Maxam, who served as the mentor for the Pace University fellows, said that all programs are designed to advance the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

The Class of 2020 fellows from Pace University are:

• Kendra Cooper-Smith: Environmental Studies
• Aissatou Gningue: Public Accounting/Political Science
• Mikayla Martin: Applied Psychology & Human Relations
• Chloe Mayhew: Global Studies
• Annabella Mead-Vancort: Political Science
• Akhila Ramesh: Communications
• Alena Romanova: Biology
• Jessica Witkowski: Political Science

Kendra Cooper-Smith, whose project focused on ways community members in the lower Hudson Valley can be instrumental in improving the health of local water, hopes to empower people to take action and care for our vital water supply.

“I was driven to apply to the program by both my passion to aid our current environmental crisis in my own small way, and a yearning to find a like-minded community of change makers,” said Cooper-Smith. “It means so much to be selected for the fellowship, and I am so thrilled to be a member of the progressive community of young people like myself.”

Overall, competition for the program was fierce this year. More than 15,155 students applied for the Fellowship, representing 1,458 campuses across 135 nations. In total, 1,428 Millennium Fellows were selected on 80 campuses across 20 nations.

In announcing the Fellowship class earlier this year, leaders at UNAI and MCN noted that student leaders are committed to making positive contributions and building a culture of social responsibility while understanding what it means to be global citizens.

“When we created the United Nations Academic Impact to foster a culture of intellectual social responsibility, we considered ‘intellect’ not as something remote or esoteric, but rather as a quality innate in every thinking individual,” said Ramu Damodaran, chief of United Nations Academic Impact. “Our collaboration with MCN will allow students to demonstrate how the wisdom and thought they invest in their formal curriculum can be extended to a greater purpose of common good, lending their strengths to their communities and their world and, in turn, being enriched by them.”

Learn more about the Millennium Fellowship, now accepting applications for the Class of 2021, at millenniumfellows.org.

About Dyson College

Pace University’s liberal arts college, Dyson College offers more than 50 programs, spanning the arts and humanities, natural sciences, social sciences, and pre-professional programs (including pre-medicine, pre-veterinary, and pre-law), as well as many courses that fulfill core curriculum requirements. The College offers access to numerous opportunities for internships, cooperative education and other hands-on learning experiences that complement in-class learning in preparing graduates for career and graduate/professional education choices..

About Pace University

Pace University has a proud history of preparing its diverse student body for a lifetime of professional success as a result of its unique program that combines rigorous academics and real-world experiences. Pace is ranked the #1 private, four-year college in the nation for upward economic mobility by Harvard University’s Opportunity Insights, evidence of the transformative education the University provides. From its beginnings as an accounting school in 1906, Pace has grown to three campuses, enrolling 13,000 students in bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral programs in more than 150 majors and programs, across a range of disciplines: arts, sciences, business, health care, technology, law, education, and more. The university also has one of the most competitive performing arts programs in the country. Pace has a signature, newly renovated campus in New York City, located in the heart of vibrant Lower Manhattan, next to Wall Street and City Hall, and two campuses in Westchester County, New York: a 200-acre picturesque Pleasantville Campus and a Law School in White Plains. Follow us on Twitter or on our news website

Imagine you’re 20 years old—at home for spring break and psyched for the summer internship you just landed. It’s at a great company, it’s the right fit, and you’re looking forward to learning so much.

But then, you find out that you can’t go back to your residence hall. And that all of your classes at Pace have been moved online. And then, to your shock and horror: the amazing company you can’t wait to intern for has put your internship on hold—lack of funding, the email says. Bad news on top of even worse news.

So, what’s next?

Just as news of countless canceled summer internships broke in the wake of the rising COVID-19 pandemic, Career Services at Pace announced a brand-new initiative: New York Recovery Internships, a program which would fund Pace students to work for nonprofit organizations that are supporting communities in need in and around New York City and Westchester.

For more than 65 Pace students, many of whom had their summer internship plans canceled due to the pandemic, this opportunity allowed them to not only gain the experience they had planned for, but also make a big impact in communities that were hurting.

“By funding these internships, we’re able to help our students gain valuable work experience, do our part to drive economic growth by producing well-prepared talent, and bring much-needed assistance to our communities,” wrote Pace University President Marvin Krislov in his Forbes column. “The New York Recovery Internships help our students and help our communities.”

And our students couldn’t agree more. “I was honored to support the National Urban League mission and see that there are more opportunities to educate beyond the classroom,” said Vicky Trieu '21, a childhood education major. “During this internship, I have been able to push myself more than I ever thought I could. I am eager to integrate policy and advocacy material into my classroom pedagogy.”

In addition to Pace’s initial seed money to fund these internships, the University sought financial support from philanthropic partners to aid in continuing the program, working in tandem to support not only Pace students who benefit from the internship opportunities, but the nonprofit organizations they intern with.

The best part of my internship was being a part of an organization that allows for and is open to new ideas.

Now in partnership with the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), one of the world’s leading philanthropic organizations making grants to nonprofits, the program will continue to support not only Pace students, but the communities surrounding our campuses during one of the most challenging times we’ve faced in recent memory.

“Grants made as part of the initiative focus on research, access to food and other necessities, education, mental health support for specially affected populations, emergency relief for artists, support for frontline staff, and more,” wrote SNF in their announcement. Along with many philanthropic partners across the globe, Pace students were eager to participate in the first phase of this initiative—to enormous success. Proving our continued commitment to the economic recovery of our local communities and creativity in the ways we think about and approach that necessary work.

From GrowNYC to the New York Public Library to the National Urban League to Feeding Westchester to many others, students had their pick of available internship opportunities that would run for a period of six to eight consecutive weeks over the summer. Each student was compensated $15 per hour for their time and effort, and while most positions took place remotely, any on-site work was required to adhere to strict health protocols to ensure safety and success. And our students can’t stop talking about their experience on the job.

“The best part of my internship was being a part of an organization that allows for and is open to new ideas,” said Arun Yegnaseshan ’21, an information systems major who worked in fundraising and database management for GrowNYC. “It also pushed me to learn new things. I developed analytical thinking skills and learned new software and how to interact with other individuals to understand the technologies they are working on.”

And they’re learning more about our local communities, too. “This experience has given me more awareness of the economic impact of food insecurity and has broadened my career search to include the nonprofit sector,” said Alexis Curio ’21, a criminal justice major who completed an internship with the Council of Peoples Organization. “My supervisor has a lot of knowledge to share and going out into the field and meeting members of the community is rewarding.”

Philanthropy is by no means new to Pace students. We’ve seen the rise of popular programs such as the Billion Oyster Project, proposals to New York State lawmakers, and even advocacy work with service dogs. We are constantly looking for new and unique ways to collaborate with our neighbors, and when COVID-19 impacted so many of them, we couldn’t stand idly by.

“This was such a uniquely impactful program, and I am so grateful for it,” said Career Services Executive Director Phyllis Mooney. “Once Pace leadership committed to this initiative, everything came together perfectly—almost as if we had rehearsed it. Generous donors, diverse nonprofit partners, and of course, our very talented, passionate students. It has been one of the greatest experiences for me professionally.”

Though the New York Recovery Internships began as a summer program, they’ve continued through the fall and Pace is committed to extending them. Together, across all of our campuses, Pace students remain resilient, optimistic, and persevering—and they continue to inspire everyone they work with, both inside and outside the classroom.

This year was hard; for everyone. For you at home and for us at Pace—for our students, for their families, and for the faculty and staff charged with providing opportunity to everyone in our community. There was nothing easy or familiar about navigating the uncharted waters of making a university function during a global pandemic, but we did our best. Not everything was perfect, and we sacrificed a lot, but our hearts were in it. We started in mid-January and we haven’t stopped since. Our community came together in the face of a seemingly insurmountable challenge. We were resilient. Steadfast. Hardworking.

Through long days and even longer nights, people from all across the University worked together to accomplish what we set out to do…we brought our students back to campus and we kept our community safe. As the fall semester comes to a close, we look back on the journey that brought us to this point, and we look towards a brighter future.

Preparing for the Worst

With the goal of keeping the Pace Community safe, our emergency preparedness team regularly runs drills and tabletop exercises for a variety of scenarios—earthquakes, floods, fires, active shooters, bears on campus, chemical spills, loss of electricity, tornadoes. Clearly, some of these scenarios are more likely than others, but the University teams prepare for them, nonetheless. No detail goes overlooked: safety and security on the ground; meal delivery; managing residential students; communicating with our internal community, with the press, and with local law enforcement, there’s a plan and procedure in place to manage a crisis. But nothing could have prepared them for the long-term impact caused by a deadly global pandemic.

In late January, while the coronavirus was still an overseas issue, leadership at Pace was closely monitoring the situation. While the pandemic was just beginning to make headlines in domestic news outlets, our biggest concern was for our students studying abroad.

“We had a coronavirus advisory team monitoring the spread of the virus, mainly because we had students studying abroad and a diverse international population,” recalls Brian Anderson, Pace’s director of Emergency Management and Environmental Health and Safety. “Once the virus hit US soil, we transitioned into a task force and we began to formalize plans in earnest of how we would react should we need to shift operations.”

The first recorded coronavirus case in New York was recorded on February 29 and while the news was inevitable, the planning process for how the University would respond should the rate of community infection rise was kicked into high gear.

The 35-member COVID-19 Task Force, comprising functional areas like health and safety, residential and student life, the Office of the Provost, facilities, dining and auxiliary services, communications, finance, and risk management began meeting daily as the virus crept closer to our campuses.

By March 11, the decision had been made to move all classes to a remote format, with the anticipation that in-person instruction would resume on March 30. In our communications to residential students, we encouraged them to bring their important belongings home with them as they headed out for spring break—just in case.

“I understood the health implications and that people were getting sick, and the seriousness of it. But at the same time, I was like ‘We get to work from home for a few weeks and then we’ll come back,’" recalls Interim Senior Associate Dean for Students Todd Smith-Bergollo. “It felt like a pause, not knowing it was the beginning of the most stressful year ever. So yeah, looking back to the thoughts then, it just seemed like it was going to be this thing that we'd get through quickly. We'd all work from home for a few weeks and we'd be able to beat the virus, and just not having any sense of what was to come.”

By Alyssa Cressotti ’08, ‘18

This year was hard; for everyone. For you at home and for us at Pace—for our students, for their families, and for the faculty and staff charged with providing opportunity to everyone in our community. There was nothing easy or familiar about navigating the uncharted waters of making a university function during a global pandemic, but we did our best. Not everything was perfect, and we sacrificed a lot, but our hearts were in it. We started in mid-January and we haven’t stopped since. Our community came together in the face of a seemingly insurmountable challenge. We were resilient. Steadfast. Hardworking.

Through long days and even longer nights, people from all across the University worked together to accomplish what we set out to do…we brought our students back to campus and we kept our community safe. As the fall semester comes to a close, we look back on the journey that brought us to this point, and we look towards a brighter future.

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In the classroom, faculty made use of Zoom stations, teaching to both students in the room and those at home.

Preparing for the Worst

With the goal of keeping the Pace Community safe, our emergency preparedness team regularly runs drills and tabletop exercises for a variety of scenarios—earthquakes, floods, fires, active shooters, bears on campus, chemical spills, loss of electricity, tornadoes. Clearly, some of these scenarios are more likely than others, but the University teams prepare for them, nonetheless. No detail goes overlooked: safety and security on the ground; meal delivery; managing residential students; communicating with our internal community, with the press, and with local law enforcement, there’s a plan and procedure in place to manage a crisis. But nothing could have prepared them for the long-term impact caused by a deadly global pandemic.

In late January, while the coronavirus was still an overseas issue, leadership at Pace was closely monitoring the situation. While the pandemic was just beginning to make headlines in domestic news outlets, our biggest concern was for our students studying abroad.

“We had a coronavirus advisory team monitoring the spread of the virus, mainly because we had students studying abroad and a diverse international population,” recalls Brian Anderson, Pace’s director of Emergency Management and Environmental Health and Safety. “Once the virus hit US soil, we transitioned into a task force and we began to formalize plans in earnest of how we would react should we need to shift operations.”

The first recorded coronavirus case in New York was recorded on February 29 and while the news was inevitable, the planning process for how the University would respond should the rate of community infection rise was kicked into high gear.

The 35-member COVID-19 Task Force, comprising functional areas like health and safety, residential and student life, the Office of the Provost, facilities, dining and auxiliary services, communications, finance, and risk management began meeting daily as the virus crept closer to our campuses.

By March 11, the decision had been made to move all classes to a remote format, with the anticipation that in-person instruction would resume on March 30. In our communications to residential students, we encouraged them to bring their important belongings home with them as they headed out for spring break—just in case.

“I understood the health implications and that people were getting sick, and the seriousness of it. But at the same time, I was like ‘We get to work from home for a few weeks and then we’ll come back,’" recalls Interim Senior Associate Dean for Students Todd Smith-Bergollo. “It felt like a pause, not knowing it was the beginning of the most stressful year ever. So yeah, looking back to the thoughts then, it just seemed like it was going to be this thing that we'd get through quickly. We'd all work from home for a few weeks and we'd be able to beat the virus, and just not having any sense of what was to come.”

Making a Shift

On March 18, the Pace Community was notified that the shift to remote classes would be extended. As cases rose and guidance from New York State became more direct, the COVID-19 Task Force made the difficult decision to move to a remote format for the remainder of the Spring 2020 semester.

Moving hundreds of classes to an online format and shifting all work at the University—including student-facing services—was not an easy decision to make, but the safety and well-being of the community was the highest priority. In just a matter of weeks, all of the University’s operations had shifted to remote. From Counseling to Career Services and everything in between, the University had to pivot. To stay in lockstep with New York Governor Cuomo’s orders, only essential personnel—information technology staff, safety and security, housing staff, and facilities staff—remained on our campuses.

One of the critical components to keeping a University community alive and thriving during the remote period was our access to the Internet and the software we all needed to do our jobs effectively and serve our students. For Chief Information Officer Paul Dampier, the infrastructure was there, but his concern was how well the community would adapt to it.

“I felt shock, horror. All of those negative emotions, initially,” recalled Dampier of the official pivot to remote for the Spring 2020 semester. “I think my biggest concern was how would people react to using online technology. Because I felt, from the IT perspective, we had all the technology in place apart from, perhaps, a fully comprehensive video conferencing system. We have different video conferencing systems, but when everybody goes online, that's a different kettle of fish.”

In addition to this seismic shift, the fear and worry within the Pace Community was pervasive—this was a global pandemic, hitting New York hard.

“Because my role involved communicating with the faculty about the pivot and subsequent revisions to our modes of teaching and learning, what was most challenging for me was supporting people who were feeling anxious, afraid, and angry,” says Interim Associate Provost for Academic Affairs Joan Walker, PhD. “My own response to these emotions was to hold smaller town calls where faculty could talk with each other about their experiences. I also worked with our instructional designers at Pace Online and the Faculty Center and with Academic Technology and Educational Media to set up a large number and variety of professional development events. The coordination of these teams at that time—and our continued coordination now to support faculty success—has been outstanding.”

In addition to getting students and faculty up and running for online learning, there was also the matter of caring for the students who remained in Pace’s residence halls—either because they were unable to travel home or because their move-outs had been put on hold due to changing guidance from New York State.

“There's not much that I haven't done or seen in higher ed to be quite honest—I’ve been in this field for more than 20 years,” says Alerie Tirsch, interim associate dean for students and director of Residential Life and Housing for the Pleasantville Campus. “When we pivoted, I was thinking, ‘Wow, this is something I never thought I would see or be a part of, and I have no idea how to make this happen,’ literally. And that is not often something that I say in my job.”

Breaking Down Barriers

“My initial reaction to the news that we were going to pivot was ‘I know we can get this done, I know that we are going to be able to meet the needs of our students,’” recalls Interim Associate Provost for Student Success Hillary Knepper, PhD. “And that it would be a great opportunity to bring everyone together.”

And she was right.

As the COVID-19 Task Force continued to meet daily and plans were put in place for what would need to be done over the summer in order to bring the community back to campus for the fall semester, cross-functional relationships were formed and synergies created.

“Everybody came to the table and they rolled up their sleeves. There was no arrogance, there was no I-know-best attitude. There was nothing but ‘How do we make this work? What are the problems? What are the solutions? Who can make it work? Who can fix this?’” says Knepper. “As part of the task force, I was working with people that I'd never met before and seeing for myself how hard everybody works on a daily basis to keep Pace running.”

For Anderson, the coming together of the University towards a common mission was a critical part for successfully navigating an entire University through a global pandemic situation.

“I think the most surprising was just how quickly we all came together. For a university that can sometimes operate in silos, those silos seemed to go away very quickly,” he says. “We had different operating units, different kinds of people. We had students, staff, faculty, all involved in our planning, all working towards a common goal.”

For Andréa Sonenberg, PhD, professor of graduate nursing in the College of Health Professions and member of the board of directors of the New York State Public Health Association, once she was appointed to the role of Coronavirus Coordination Officer, she realized how critical the relationship-building aspect of her role could be.

“Coordination is what it takes, because it isn't just about strategizing, developing, and implementing a testing protocol; following up on the results; and isolating/quarantining students to keep the community safe. All of that goes into working with multiple players, and all of the different moving parts of the system. I met amazing people in the University that I never had met before, or was even aware of their roles, who helped along the way,” she says. “And I couldn't have done it without them. Obviously, Brian introduced me to a lot of these players, but then once I developed my own relationships with them, we were able to accomplish things by expanding our smaller groups to work together in whatever facet of what I was doing.”

Preparing for the Return to Campus

As the months of remote work rolled on, the focus shifted from an immediate righting of the ship to a concerted effort to create smooth sailing for the fall semester. Once the University was able to get its bearings in a virtual format, planning for real success was swiftly becoming a reality. With New York’s phased reopening in process during the summer months, the COVID-19 Task Force alongside the Fall Reopening Group, which comprised faculty and students and was led by Biology Chair Marcy Kelly, PhD, began planning for an in-person college experience for the fall. The plan had to align with guidance from New York State and included not just health and safety protocols, but also methods for monitoring the health of our on-campus population (think testing and health care availability), containment of potential transmission (how we would assist the state with contact tracing and providing space for quarantine and isolation on campus), and planning for a potential campus shut down—in the event there was widespread, uncontrolled transmission of the virus.

After pivoting the majority of a University’s workforce to a remote modality, the University saw upwards of 18,000 Zoom sessions per day. Which was great! But how do you make that work once people return to campus?

“We had to somehow be able to bring Zoom into the classroom, and we reached out to one of our vendors and actually said, ‘This is the issue we've got. We've got to be able to put a big screen in the Zoom station,’” explained Dampier. “Well, we coined the phrase ‘Zoom station,’ because we wanted a buzzword to hang it on and worked with the vendor to actually develop that technology and put it in place.”

The Zoom technology that was brought into our physical classrooms were 150 large format screens and audiovisual equipment that would allow our faculty to teach simultaneously to students physically in the classroom and to those tuning in from a remote location. Each station essentially gave the students and the faculty an almost seamless course delivery method called HyFlex, or hybrid-flexible.

Over the summer, Pace’s ITS Department teamed up with the Provost’s Office and the Faculty Center to bring our faculty, some of whom had never worked with Zoom, up to speed to make sure they were able to effectively teach for the fall.

“It's a challenge, it is absolutely a challenge to learn in a method in which you have not before, it's a challenge to teach in a method that you have not before,” says Knepper. “But when I saw the numbers of faculty who took the trainings to learn how to do a better delivery, how to improve their pedagogy…we had adjuncts stepping up, we had tenured full professors stepping up. We had everybody covered in terms of our community. So, I would say that we kept education accessible in a very dire time.”

In addition to the Zoom stations set up in classrooms across campuses, our Facilities team was hard at work ensuring that the physical classrooms and common areas of our buildings were set up for success.

“We had to learn new cleaning methods, learn about how to clean for a virus that we didn't know whether or not lasted on surfaces. So new protocols, new training, bringing on staff to make sure that they were cleaning the right way. That was a big one, making sure that they weren't contaminating surfaces as they cleaned one area and cleaned another area. The cleaning aspect was really important. Learning all about electrostatic cleaning, what that did, the type of products that we use, making sure we had the right products in place, making sure we had enough supplies on campus and projecting, we usually project on a semester basis, but we really had to project differently on what we needed and how much we needed,” explains Assistant Vice President of Facilities and Capital Projects Aisha Moyla.

And it wasn’t just cleaning and sanitization techniques that were being perfected over the summer break. There was also the small matter of ensuring social distance was maintained across the University and that students, faculty, and staff were kept safe during an in-person semester.

“We spent a lot of time talking to other people, other universities, other facilities, a lot of organizations, to see what they were doing, what their recommendations were, and that's where we learned a lot of information,” says Moyla. “I think that the hardest part of all this is really planning and trying to figure out what to do in this unknown.”

One of the biggest tasks for the Facilities team was making sure there was appropriate signage throughout the buildings on all of the Pace campuses—occupancy limits, traffic patterns and flow, where people could sit (and where they couldn’t), and so much more.

“Our project managers put together circulation plans for every single building on each campus, over two million square feet of space,” she says. “They spent a lot of time trying to figure out what made sense and then actually going out to the field and walking that to make sure it actually worked and making sure that they were still not violating any code compliance issues, any egress issues. This was on top of putting together the social distance planning for more than 300 classrooms.”

Another critical part to consider when bringing the students back to campus was what they could expect in terms of life on campus—were there going to be events? What about life in the residence halls? How do meals work? What would happen if students had to be isolated or quarantined?

“At some point in the summer when we started realizing we're going to have to change our protocols for everything. We're going to have to change our protocols for living in residence, how to host campus activities, how to keep students, staff, and faculty healthy,” says Interim University Dean for Students Rachel Carpenter.

One of the first changes was to the University’s guest policies inside the residence halls. Students are typically allowed to visit each other’s rooms, but to keep everyone safe, “Family Units” were created to help slow the spread of the virus while still giving residential students the sense of community they desired. Inside a student’s room or suite, they could take off their face coverings, relax social distancing requirements, and feel normal. But this new policy wasn’t without its challenges.

“When we announced the change to the guest policy we had a little bit of pushback because students wanted to visit with each other. But I think they really understood,” says Patrick Roger-Gordon, assistant dean for students and director of Residential Life and Housing in NYC. “I think the culture in our state, given what New York went through in March and April, even our students who weren't physically here, the whole nation was watching what was happening here. And we were the epicenter and things were terrible and we worked really hard to improve.”

The education around the virus and the ways it spread was critical to helping enforce policies set forth by the COVID-19 Task Force. Once the decision was made to return to campus, the University began socializing these new requirements and policies through the #OurSafePace campaign and our Return to Campus website, dedicated to informing our community about the different procedures that were implemented to help reduce the spread of the virus on campus.

A Virtual Learning Experience

The introduction of Zoom stations and a mix of in-person and virtual learning began when the community returned to campus. The ways faculty and students had to reassess their definitions for teaching and learning this semester were incredible.

In the classroom, students sat six feet apart, faculty stood behind clear moveable partitions and taught to the students in the room and those tuning in from elsewhere, and all wore face coverings. Not an easy feat in even the best of circumstances.

“I think that this has demolished any preconceived notions that online or remote teaching is inferior to on-campus teaching. No pedagogy is perfect. But I think many people have seen that remote teaching has unique affordances that can and should be used post-pandemic,” says Walker. “On Zoom, I felt like a guest in students’ homes and residence hall rooms. Knowing that roommates and family members were overhearing our work, meeting students’ pets and seeing students ‘on their turf’ rather than in the classroom made teaching feel more personal to me.”

“I think that window into students' lives made faculty really aware of their students’ needs in ways that they might not have been otherwise,” notes Knepper. “I'm not sure everybody realizes that a lot of our students are really struggling to make it through.”

For Walker, she used class time and office hours during the first two-weeks of the semester to set up one-on-one meetings with her students to get to know them personally, something she believes really created a connection and increased the level of student engagement. “It’s something I want to continue doing, whether we’re face-to-face or not,” she says.

And that sense of connection goes both ways. For students, they had the opportunity to see their professors on their home turf—from kids and spouses wandering around in the background to cats jumping up to say hello, the virtual modality had a humanizing effect that traditional in-classroom learning doesn’t typically have.

“As a faculty member, I think it probably makes you a little less lofty and a lot more like a partner in education,” says Knepper. “Continuing that accessibility was so important and also makes everybody think about the fact that people have lives beyond the classroom, beyond my classroom. I know they have another life and they know I have another life.”

This year was hard; for everyone. For you at home and for us at Pace—for our students, for their families, and for the faculty and staff charged with providing opportunity to everyone in our community. There was nothing easy or familiar about navigating the uncharted waters of making a university function during a global pandemic, but we did our best. Not everything was perfect, and we sacrificed a lot, but our hearts were in it. We started in mid-January and we haven’t stopped since. Our community came together in the face of a seemingly insurmountable challenge. We were resilient. Steadfast. Hardworking.

Through long days and even longer nights, people from all across the University worked together to accomplish what we set out to do…we brought our students back to campus and we kept our community safe. As the fall semester comes to a close, we look back on the journey that brought us to this point, and we look towards a brighter future.

Preparing for the Worst

With the goal of keeping the Pace Community safe, our emergency preparedness team regularly runs drills and tabletop exercises for a variety of scenarios—earthquakes, floods, fires, active shooters, bears on campus, chemical spills, loss of electricity, tornadoes. Clearly, some of these scenarios are more likely than others, but the University teams prepare for them, nonetheless. No detail goes overlooked: safety and security on the ground; meal delivery; managing residential students; communicating with our internal community, with the press, and with local law enforcement, there’s a plan and procedure in place to manage a crisis. But nothing could have prepared them for the long-term impact caused by a deadly global pandemic.

In late January, while the coronavirus was still an overseas issue, leadership at Pace was closely monitoring the situation. While the pandemic was just beginning to make headlines in domestic news outlets, our biggest concern was for our students studying abroad.

“We had a coronavirus advisory team monitoring the spread of the virus, mainly because we had students studying abroad and a diverse international population,” recalls Brian Anderson, Pace’s director of Emergency Management and Environmental Health and Safety. “Once the virus hit US soil, we transitioned into a task force and we began to formalize plans in earnest of how we would react should we need to shift operations.”

The first recorded coronavirus case in New York was recorded on February 29 and while the news was inevitable, the planning process for how the University would respond should the rate of community infection rise was kicked into high gear.

The 35-member COVID-19 Task Force, comprising functional areas like health and safety, residential and student life, the Office of the Provost, facilities, dining and auxiliary services, communications, finance, and risk management began meeting daily as the virus crept closer to our campuses.

By March 11, the decision had been made to move all classes to a remote format, with the anticipation that in-person instruction would resume on March 30. In our communications to residential students, we encouraged them to bring their important belongings home with them as they headed out for spring break—just in case.

“I understood the health implications and that people were getting sick, and the seriousness of it. But at the same time, I was like ‘We get to work from home for a few weeks and then we’ll come back,’" recalls Interim Senior Associate Dean for Students Todd Smith-Bergollo. “It felt like a pause, not knowing it was the beginning of the most stressful year ever. So yeah, looking back to the thoughts then, it just seemed like it was going to be this thing that we'd get through quickly. We'd all work from home for a few weeks and we'd be able to beat the virus, and just not having any sense of what was to come.”

Making a Shift

On March 18, the Pace Community was notified that the shift to remote classes would be extended. As cases rose and guidance from New York State became more direct, the COVID-19 Task Force made the difficult decision to move to a remote format for the remainder of the Spring 2020 semester.

Moving hundreds of classes to an online format and shifting all work at the University—including student-facing services—was not an easy decision to make, but the safety and well-being of the community was the highest priority. In just a matter of weeks, all of the University’s operations had shifted to remote. From Counseling to Career Services and everything in between, the University had to pivot. To stay in lockstep with New York Governor Cuomo’s orders, only essential personnel—information technology staff, safety and security, housing staff, and facilities staff—remained on our campuses.

One of the critical components to keeping a University community alive and thriving during the remote period was our access to the Internet and the software we all needed to do our jobs effectively and serve our students. For Chief Information Officer Paul Dampier, the infrastructure was there, but his concern was how well the community would adapt to it.

“I felt shock, horror. All of those negative emotions, initially,” recalled Dampier of the official pivot to remote for the Spring 2020 semester. “I think my biggest concern was how would people react to using online technology. Because I felt, from the IT perspective, we had all the technology in place apart from, perhaps, a fully comprehensive video conferencing system. We have different video conferencing systems, but when everybody goes online, that's a different kettle of fish.”

In addition to this seismic shift, the fear and worry within the Pace Community was pervasive—this was a global pandemic, hitting New York hard.

“Because my role involved communicating with the faculty about the pivot and subsequent revisions to our modes of teaching and learning, what was most challenging for me was supporting people who were feeling anxious, afraid, and angry,” says Interim Associate Provost for Academic Affairs Joan Walker, PhD. “My own response to these emotions was to hold smaller town calls where faculty could talk with each other about their experiences. I also worked with our instructional designers at Pace Online and the Faculty Center and with Academic Technology and Educational Media to set up a large number and variety of professional development events. The coordination of these teams at that time—and our continued coordination now to support faculty success—has been outstanding.”

In addition to getting students and faculty up and running for online learning, there was also the matter of caring for the students who remained in Pace’s residence halls—either because they were unable to travel home or because their move-outs had been put on hold due to changing guidance from New York State.

“There's not much that I haven't done or seen in higher ed to be quite honest—I’ve been in this field for more than 20 years,” says Alerie Tirsch, interim associate dean for students and director of Residential Life and Housing for the Pleasantville Campus. “When we pivoted, I was thinking, ‘Wow, this is something I never thought I would see or be a part of, and I have no idea how to make this happen,’ literally. And that is not often something that I say in my job.”

Breaking Down Barriers

“My initial reaction to the news that we were going to pivot was ‘I know we can get this done, I know that we are going to be able to meet the needs of our students,’” recalls Interim Associate Provost for Student Success Hillary Knepper, PhD. “And that it would be a great opportunity to bring everyone together.”

And she was right.

As the COVID-19 Task Force continued to meet daily and plans were put in place for what would need to be done over the summer in order to bring the community back to campus for the fall semester, cross-functional relationships were formed and synergies created.

“Everybody came to the table and they rolled up their sleeves. There was no arrogance, there was no I-know-best attitude. There was nothing but ‘How do we make this work? What are the problems? What are the solutions? Who can make it work? Who can fix this?’” says Knepper. “As part of the task force, I was working with people that I'd never met before and seeing for myself how hard everybody works on a daily basis to keep Pace running.”

For Anderson, the coming together of the University towards a common mission was a critical part for successfully navigating an entire University through a global pandemic situation.

"I think that this has demolished any preconceived notions that online or remote teaching is inferior to on-campus teaching. No pedagogy is perfect. But I think many people have seen that remote teaching has unique affordances that can and should be used post-pandemic."

“I think the most surprising was just how quickly we all came together. For a university that can sometimes operate in silos, those silos seemed to go away very quickly,” he says. “We had different operating units, different kinds of people. We had students, staff, faculty, all involved in our planning, all working towards a common goal.”

For Andréa Sonenberg, PhD, professor of graduate nursing in the College of Health Professions and member of the board of directors of the New York State Public Health Association, once she was appointed to the role of Coronavirus Coordination Officer, she realized how critical the relationship-building aspect of her role could be.

“Coordination is what it takes, because it isn't just about strategizing, developing, and implementing a testing protocol; following up on the results; and isolating/quarantining students to keep the community safe. All of that goes into working with multiple players, and all of the different moving parts of the system. I met amazing people in the University that I never had met before, or was even aware of their roles, who helped along the way,” she says. “And I couldn't have done it without them. Obviously, Brian introduced me to a lot of these players, but then once I developed my own relationships with them, we were able to accomplish things by expanding our smaller groups to work together in whatever facet of what I was doing.”

Preparing for the Return to Campus

As the months of remote work rolled on, the focus shifted from an immediate righting of the ship to a concerted effort to create smooth sailing for the fall semester. Once the University was able to get its bearings in a virtual format, planning for real success was swiftly becoming a reality. With New York’s phased reopening in process during the summer months, the COVID-19 Task Force alongside the Fall Reopening Group, which comprised faculty and students and was led by Biology Chair Marcy Kelly, PhD, began planning for an in-person college experience for the fall. The plan had to align with guidance from New York State and included not just health and safety protocols, but also methods for monitoring the health of our on-campus population (think testing and health care availability), containment of potential transmission (how we would assist the state with contact tracing and providing space for quarantine and isolation on campus), and planning for a potential campus shut down—in the event there was widespread, uncontrolled transmission of the virus.

After pivoting the majority of a University’s workforce to a remote modality, the University saw upwards of 18,000 Zoom sessions per day. Which was great! But how do you make that work once people return to campus?

“We had to somehow be able to bring Zoom into the classroom, and we reached out to one of our vendors and actually said, ‘This is the issue we've got. We've got to be able to put a big screen in the Zoom station,’” explained Dampier. “Well, we coined the phrase ‘Zoom station,’ because we wanted a buzzword to hang it on and worked with the vendor to actually develop that technology and put it in place.”

The Zoom technology that was brought into our physical classrooms were 150 large format screens and audiovisual equipment that would allow our faculty to teach simultaneously to students physically in the classroom and to those tuning in from a remote location. Each station essentially gave the students and the faculty an almost seamless course delivery method called HyFlex, or hybrid-flexible.

Over the summer, Pace’s ITS Department teamed up with the Provost’s Office and the Faculty Center to bring our faculty, some of whom had never worked with Zoom, up to speed to make sure they were able to effectively teach for the fall.

“It's a challenge, it is absolutely a challenge to learn in a method in which you have not before, it's a challenge to teach in a method that you have not before,” says Knepper. “But when I saw the numbers of faculty who took the trainings to learn how to do a better delivery, how to improve their pedagogy…we had adjuncts stepping up, we had tenured full professors stepping up. We had everybody covered in terms of our community. So, I would say that we kept education accessible in a very dire time.”

In addition to the Zoom stations set up in classrooms across campuses, our Facilities team was hard at work ensuring that the physical classrooms and common areas of our buildings were set up for success.

“We had to learn new cleaning methods, learn about how to clean for a virus that we didn't know whether or not lasted on surfaces. So new protocols, new training, bringing on staff to make sure that they were cleaning the right way. That was a big one, making sure that they weren't contaminating surfaces as they cleaned one area and cleaned another area. The cleaning aspect was really important. Learning all about electrostatic cleaning, what that did, the type of products that we use, making sure we had the right products in place, making sure we had enough supplies on campus and projecting, we usually project on a semester basis, but we really had to project differently on what we needed and how much we needed,” explains Assistant Vice President of Facilities and Capital Projects Aisha Moyla.

And it wasn’t just cleaning and sanitization techniques that were being perfected over the summer break. There was also the small matter of ensuring social distance was maintained across the University and that students, faculty, and staff were kept safe during an in-person semester.

“We spent a lot of time talking to other people, other universities, other facilities, a lot of organizations, to see what they were doing, what their recommendations were, and that's where we learned a lot of information,” says Moyla. “I think that the hardest part of all this is really planning and trying to figure out what to do in this unknown.”

One of the biggest tasks for the Facilities team was making sure there was appropriate signage throughout the buildings on all of the Pace campuses—occupancy limits, traffic patterns and flow, where people could sit (and where they couldn’t), and so much more.

“Our project managers put together circulation plans for every single building on each campus, over two million square feet of space,” she says. “They spent a lot of time trying to figure out what made sense and then actually going out to the field and walking that to make sure it actually worked and making sure that they were still not violating any code compliance issues, any egress issues. This was on top of putting together the social distance planning for more than 300 classrooms.”

Another critical part to consider when bringing the students back to campus was what they could expect in terms of life on campus—were there going to be events? What about life in the residence halls? How do meals work? What would happen if students had to be isolated or quarantined?

“At some point in the summer when we started realizing we're going to have to change our protocols for everything. We're going to have to change our protocols for living in residence, how to host campus activities, how to keep students, staff, and faculty healthy,” says Interim University Dean for Students Rachel Carpenter.

One of the first changes was to the University’s guest policies inside the residence halls. Students are typically allowed to visit each other’s rooms, but to keep everyone safe, “Family Units” were created to help slow the spread of the virus while still giving residential students the sense of community they desired. Inside a student’s room or suite, they could take off their face coverings, relax social distancing requirements, and feel normal. But this new policy wasn’t without its challenges.

“When we announced the change to the guest policy we had a little bit of pushback because students wanted to visit with each other. But I think they really understood,” says Patrick Roger-Gordon, assistant dean for students and director of Residential Life and Housing in NYC. “I think the culture in our state, given what New York went through in March and April, even our students who weren't physically here, the whole nation was watching what was happening here. And we were the epicenter and things were terrible and we worked really hard to improve.”

The education around the virus and the ways it spread was critical to helping enforce policies set forth by the COVID-19 Task Force. Once the decision was made to return to campus, the University began socializing these new requirements and policies through the #OurSafePace campaign and our Return to Campus website, dedicated to informing our community about the different procedures that were implemented to help reduce the spread of the virus on campus.

A Virtual Learning Experience

The introduction of Zoom stations and a mix of in-person and virtual learning began when the community returned to campus. The ways faculty and students had to reassess their definitions for teaching and learning this semester were incredible.

In the classroom, students sat six feet apart, faculty stood behind clear moveable partitions and taught to the students in the room and those tuning in from elsewhere, and all wore face coverings. Not an easy feat in even the best of circumstances.

“I think that this has demolished any preconceived notions that online or remote teaching is inferior to on-campus teaching. No pedagogy is perfect. But I think many people have seen that remote teaching has unique affordances that can and should be used post-pandemic,” says Walker. “On Zoom, I felt like a guest in students’ homes and residence hall rooms. Knowing that roommates and family members were overhearing our work, meeting students’ pets and seeing students ‘on their turf’ rather than in the classroom made teaching feel more personal to me.”

“I think that window into students' lives made faculty really aware of their students’ needs in ways that they might not have been otherwise,” notes Knepper. “I'm not sure everybody realizes that a lot of our students are really struggling to make it through.”

For Walker, she used class time and office hours during the first two-weeks of the semester to set up one-on-one meetings with her students to get to know them personally, something she believes really created a connection and increased the level of student engagement. “It’s something I want to continue doing, whether we’re face-to-face or not,” she says.

And that sense of connection goes both ways. For students, they had the opportunity to see their professors on their home turf—from kids and spouses wandering around in the background to cats jumping up to say hello, the virtual modality had a humanizing effect that traditional in-classroom learning doesn’t typically have.

“As a faculty member, I think it probably makes you a little less lofty and a lot more like a partner in education,” says Knepper. “Continuing that accessibility was so important and also makes everybody think about the fact that people have lives beyond the classroom, beyond my classroom. I know they have another life and they know I have another life.”

Our Safe Pace

While life on campus may have looked and felt different this semester, Pace continued to be committed to ensuring the health and safety of our community.

“I think our students, whether from the tri-state area or from outside that area, understood what was happening here and what they were coming to be a part of. I think they recognize the importance of those measures we were taking, even though there was a sacrifice and a cost for that,” says Roger-Gordon.

Through community training, daily monitoring with the PaceSafe app and careful adherence to policies regarding social distancing, the wearing of face coverings, good hand hygiene, and a regulated community testing plan, Pace was able to have a successful semester back on campus.

Once back on campus, Pace implemented a community testing strategy that was able to successfully test 25 percent of our on-campus population weekly. People coming to campus were selected for coronavirus testing at random based on ID swipe information—if you were coming to campus and interacting with the community, the chances were good that you would be selected for testing. This 25 percent randomized testing strategy developed by the COVID-19 Task Force and Pace’s Coronavirus Coordination Officer was able to detect early clusters of positive cases on campus, resulting in only two full quarantine situations in Pleasantville and White Plains.

“I am humbled by the dedication, commitment, and persistence of this amazing group of men and women,” said College of Health Professions Associate Dean for Administration and COVID-19 Task Force member Gerrie Colombraro, PhD, RN. “Through our on-campus testing initiative, we have tested more than 9,000 individuals since August 10, with just 121 positive test results for an overall positivity rate of just over one percent—a remarkable accomplishment!”

When the students returned, they were able to host cross-campus events virtually via Zoom, connecting with students they otherwise would never have met if it wasn’t for the pandemic. From yoga sessions to club meetings, students were connecting with their counterparts on other campuses—strengthening the connection between all Setters.

“Students have forgone typical social interaction and many of the most traditional and fundamental aspects of college life,” says Walker of the students who returned to campus this fall, making Zoom critical to not only the academic portion of college life, but social as well.

“I think really at the heart of it all, was figuring out it's not just about doing a social program. It's about engaging all of our students; welcoming our new students into the community, helping them feel connected, giving them information,” says Smith-Bergollo “There were so many important things that we needed to capture in these virtual social programs in ways that we had never tried to do before, so it was a huge experiment.”

Throughout the fall semester, the University rallied behind the concept of Our Safe Pace, a call for each of us—student, staff, or faculty—to do our part to create a safe and healthy community for the greater good. The message was woven into our training, into digital signage across campus, in emails to the community, across social media, and more. And for the most part, it worked.

We had some positive cases, but we were able to contain them. In late September, we had our biggest outbreak, with 18 positive cases in one of our residence halls. The county health department directed everyone who lived in that building—students, RAs—to quarantine for 14 days. And, as it turned out, even that went OK. There wasn’t a larger outbreak. Our students stayed healthy—and emotionally healthy, too, thanks to a lot of support from our Residential Life staff and other university leaders.

“It was upsetting to think that I might not even have [the virus], but I’m stuck in quarantine,” said Kayla Slusser ‘23 in an article for the Pace Chronicle. “But thinking from a bigger picture now, we’re doing this so we can prevent having to all go home…It sucks, but it’s better for the long term than the short term.”

By starting classes early, the University was able to complete in-person instruction by Thanksgiving break, with the end of the semester, including exams, conducted remotely and finishing on December 6. The accelerated calendar was implemented to comply with public health guidance to avoid asking our community to disperse across the country and then return to campus, potentially contributing to virus spread.

Looking Ahead

As effective vaccines against COVID-19 have begun being rolled out to the nation, the team at Pace is looking forward to a bright spring. Right now, the students have gone home for winter break and the COVID-19 Task Force is monitoring the rising cases across the nation. They’ve shared their plans for bringing students back to campus for the Spring 2021 semester—barring any unforeseen changes to New York State’s travel advisory or reopening plans—and have high hopes for another success, albeit unusual, semester.

The nature of the virus and the actions we all take will play a key role in the success of the Spring 2021 semester. As things change, so, too, do the University’s plans.

“We have a lot of work to do. The virus is at a very interesting place right now. How it behaves further this spring is really going to be dictated by our actions and the actions of our communities,” Anderson says. “If people are wearing masks, if they are listening to science, we will see that slowing the spread that we saw last spring, but we do need to work together and stay vigilant.”

“My hopes for the spring semester are that our students will return safely, that they will have a wonderful academic semester, that we will get some semblance of our normal student life,” Knepper says. “My hope is for tenacity,” adds Walker. “We’ve been through a lot and it’s not over yet. But we will get through this, if we continue to have patience and help each other.”