Welcome to Mt. San Antonio Virtual College!
Two weeks ago, Mt. SAC started teaching all of its courses online. Converting from a traditional on-campus classroom model to the virtual world of online teaching was a monumental task for faculty, and they should be commended for achieving such a titanic task in such a short amount of time. Classified professionals have also adjusted to the virtual business model, working remotely or telecommuting. Even students are learning to learn online. All of us are doing our parts to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Mt. SAC is the largest single-campus community college in California, and it serves more than 60,000 students both credit and noncredit. We have converted more than three thousand classes from on-campus to online, virtual classes. Classes that require on-campus labs or on-site instruction had to be canceled, including some of the most popular classes. Some of these will be converted to
In helping the Instructional side get ready for virtual classrooms, our Information Technology team also made some monumental changes to the network infrastructure. They created “virtual classrooms” to allow classes that had been on-cam0pus to continue. The classified professionals in the Faculty Center for Learning Technology (FCLT) also scrambled to train and assist full-time and adjunct faculty convert their courses to Canvas and online. The enormous shift from on-campus to virtual classrooms in such a short time (two weeks) is tremendous.
While the campus is closed to everyone right now, we do still have classified working on campus because they are performing “essential work” that can only be done on campus. For example, the classified professionals who care for and watch over the animals (horses, pigs, chickens, even the Koi pond) remain on campus. Of course, our Campus Safety staff also is on campus 24 hours a day, seven days a week all year.
Of course, Mt. SAC cannot operate without all of you, the classified professionals who provide all the administrative support for both the operational and instructional sides of the college. Students still need to learn and need support services, and the classified professionals are still doing their jobs, supporting the students, and getting things done (see a list of services available by following this link).
Your Chapter 262 Leadership Team wants you to know that these extraordinary circumstances have demonstrated you all to be extraordinary workers, getting the job done under the most difficult circumstances, all the while worrying and trying to care for your families as well. To paraphrase Thomas Paine, these are the times that try our souls, the classified professionals and Mt. SAC supporters will not, in this crisis, shrink from our service to the college or our students. Those who stand and serve deserve the love and thanks of our fellow members, our students, and our community.
Keep being awesome, and let’s keep in our thoughts our Mt. SAC colleagues currently hospitalized with the coronavirus.
Top Ten Telecommuting Tips
David Letterman gave his final one. Casey Kasem gave all of America one for years. Even the Federal Bureau of Investigation has one (although you probably don’t want to be on it). Yes, America’s favorite pastime and the number one on the Top Ten list of trivial timewasters, it’s the famous Top Ten List. Making a Top Ten list is so popular, even your CSEA Chapter 262 decided to join in, although our list is meant to save time and not waste it. This is your Top Ten Telecommuting Tips for our new normal (except we will start with the first five in this issue and finish the list in the next issue).
Starting off at number 10…
Have a Good Internet Connection: Without a good internet connection, you are not going to get much done. If you have a spouse also working from home, children using the internet for home-schooling and online classes, and you’re trying to use zoom for meetings, your internet connection could be unstable and unreliable. Perhaps consider temporarily upgrading your internet connection to a higher speed while you are all at home. Another option is to set a schedule for internet use. That may not be popular, but it may be necessary.
Number 9 … Create A Dedicated Space: A dedicated, private space, no matter how small, is a good start. Working from home, especially when the whole family is there with you, creates a number of distractions. Kids being kids. Husbands yelling at the TV while watching sports. The cat on your keyboard. All of these things leave little room for concentrating on work. Find a place where you can close a door or isolate yourself from other while you can work. Create a temporary office in your garage. Put a TV tray next to your bed and lock the bedroom door. It’s a challenge, so be creative. I have heard some resourceful parents put up a tent in their backyard and have the kids play there while the parents work from home. If that works for you, give it a try.
Tip Number 8 ... Stick to Your Routines: Get up at the same time every morning. Have your breakfast and coffee. Get the kids started on their homework. Take your shower. Whatever your pre-telecommuting daily routine was, don’t stop now. Set your working hours, such as starting time, lunch break, or regular breaks to structure your day effectively. If your manager has given you an assignment and deadline, plan your day so you get the work done on time to meet the deadline. Create a daily schedule for the work you need to get done. Your managers know you are not going to be sitting at your computer all day every day, and they probably won’t be giving you eight hours of work every day. If you set a schedule, and then make sure your family knows that schedule, you can get the work done and take care of the house, the kids, and the dog and still get your work done. Again, be creative.
Number 7 … Keep the lines of communication open: While we are all telecommuting, communicating with our managers and colleagues is vital. Since we are all not on campus together, check in at least once a day by e-mail, phone or voicemail, or even schedule a zoom meeting once a week. Working relationships develop and are most effective in person, and telecommuting workers can be forgotten or overlooked. If you regularly call vendors or businesses, counterparts at other colleges, or anyone else off-campus, continue to do so. If you can arrange a zoom meeting, try to do that. Just send a “How you doing?” e-mail once in a while can maintain the vital and collaborative contacts we have with others. Don’t be annoying or stalkerish, but let the many people who support Mt. SAC and your work know they are not forgotten and, more importantly, that Mt. SAC is still … well, not “business as usual,” but still up and running and educating our community.
And at Number 6 … Invest in Good Headphones and Use Them: Buy a noise-cancelling headset with a mute button. The last thing you want is to be in an online meeting and have the doorbell ring or police sirens blaring the background. Nothing can ruin a zoom meeting than hearing your kids in the background playing or just screaming when you’re trying to hear what your manager is asking you to do. Sure, we all know working from home isn’t like working at the office, but you should try to maintain that illusion as much as you can. Wearing headphones (as opposed to earbuds) allows outside noise to remain … outside — not in your ears.
So that’s the Top Ten for today. We will finish off the rest of the list in the next issue.
Telecommuting FAQ Web Page
Adjusting to the telecommuting model has been a challenge on many fronts, including where to get answers to your questions. To help answer those questions, we have created a COVID-19/Telecommuting FAQ page with answers to many of your questions.
Follow this link to visit the Telecommuting FAQ page. If you have a question that doesn’t appear on the FAQ page, you can submit a question through this online form.
Zoombombing . . . Yes, It’s A Thing
The past few weeks have been a crazy period of adjusting to new working conditions, some more challenging than others. For example, you are trying to get work done on your computer, but your cat seems to have other ideas as she plops herself down on your keyboard (cat owners understand). We have to learn how to work around these little distractions (hint: grab a laser pointer and chase your cat with it. This really does work!).
One adjustment we have learned is how to conduct a meeting while telecommuting. We are all learning about using Zoom for teleconferencing. Zoom allows as few as two or as many as 300 participants and is a free service offered to all community college employees through the Chancellor’s office. Zoom is a great tool for conducting department meetings, video conference calls, or even just person-to-person conversations. Zoom is being used by your Chapter 262 Executive Board to conduct meetings. Zoom is a great tool, but then there is also a darker side as well. It’s called Zoombombing.
Yes. It’s really a thing. Weird, right? You probably have heard about photobombing, someone unexpectedly appearing in the background of your selfie. Now we have Zoombombing, someone unexpectedly joining in your Zoom conference. Sometimes they are pranksters. Sometimes they are corporate spies wanting to steal company secrets. Some, however, are predators who plant racist remarks, expose themselves, or “share” their screen to display porn. Sadly, even while the world deals with a global pandemic killing thousands, there are “bad people” (insert your own adjective there) who take advantage of good people, so we have to learn to adjust to this as well.
There are some things you can do to protect your Zoom meetings. The FBI recommends exercising due diligence and caution in your cybersecurity efforts. The following steps can be taken to mitigate teleconference hijacking threats:
Do not make meetings or classrooms public. In Zoom, there are two options to make a meeting private: require a meeting password or use the waiting room feature and control the admittance of guests (participants are held in the “waiting room” and the meeting host allows only invited guests to enter).
Do not share a link to a teleconference or classroom on an unrestricted publicly available social media post. Provide the link directly to specific people (use Outlook e-mail or, better still, a calendar invitation, which can easily be set up in Zoom for Outlook).
Manage screensharing options. In Zoom, change screensharing to “Host Only.” You can also pass screensharing to individual participants.
Ensure users are using the updated version of remote access/meeting applications. In January 2020, Zoom updated their software. In their security update, the teleconference software provider added passwords by default for meetings and disabled the ability to randomly scan for meetings to join.
Lastly, ensure you follow Mt. SAC’s telecommuting agreement and requirements for information security.
If you were a victim of a teleconference hijacking, or any cyber-crime for that matter, report it to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov. Additionally, if you are harassed in any way, make sure you report it to Human Resources using the online discrimination reporting form by following this link.
You should also watch this video from TechRepublic about How to prevent Zoom bombing: 5 simple tips. This is a good video on how to set up Zoom to prevent Zoombombing.
CalPERS Benefits Education Event
Whether you’re early in your career or retirement’s around the corner, CalPERS Benefits Education Events (CBEEs) provide you the opportunity to learn about and prepare for retirement and are held throughout the state. You can attend informative classes to learn about benefits, programs, and more. Visit the exhibit area to speak with representatives from CalPERS and partner organizations.
April 17, 18, 2020 (attend one day)
Pacific Palms
1 Industry Hills Pkwy
City of Industry, CA 91744
Schedule: https://www.calpers.ca.gov/docs/cbee-schedule-industry-1718-2020.pdf
Register to Attend: https://www.calpers.ca.gov/page/education-center/member-education/benefits-education-events/cec-register&eventId=1001383
Your CSEA Chapter 262 Executive Board:
Robert Stubbe, President • Rosa Asencio, 1st Vice President • Marlene Espina, 2nd Vice President
Barbara Carrillo, Secretary • Zak Gallegos, Treasurer
Elizabeth Jauregui, Chief Union Steward • Mark Fernandez, Communications Officer
Brandon Gillett, Site Rep Coordinator • Sandra Bollier, Past President
“To improve the lives of our members, students, and community.”
CSEA Chapter 262 • 1100 N. Grand Avenue Walnut, California 91789 • 909.274.6262 • www.csea262.org