Welcome Saints!
I am so looking forward to welcoming each of you to the campus. Later today you will be receiving our regular Marching Back update. There are many, many details and I appreciate your patience and questions as we continue to move through the process. While the plan and website include a lot of details about how we are Marching Back, I wanted to take a moment to share feedback at the heart of many of the questions I have received over the past several weeks: Why are we Marching Back?
Right now, reopening the college is hard. And your decision to come back to college is hard. Every college and each individual have to make their own decision based on a number of factors. Please know that we are doing everything we can to keep our students, faculty, and staff safe and healthy, including contracting with a Colorado lab who has guaranteed us with a 48-hour turnaround time on tests and has guaranteed sufficient tests for our entire student body.
We are Marching Back because we know that as helpful as our technological capacities are, there is nothing that replaces the in-person experience of being on a college campus. We’ll begin the year by continuing to deliver the highest quality educational experience we can. That means welcoming you to campus in a couple of weeks. As modifications need to be made, we’ll adapt and adjust. We’ll be responsive to new information and resilient in the face of the challenges that arise.
We do believe that the Carroll College community is special. We believe students should be able to move forward with their education. And we believe the world needs more Saints, and that can’t wait.
We have heard from many of you who have expressed a strong desire for us to have face to face instruction, and we have heard differently from others. Please know, whatever your decision is, we are with you and will do what we can to keep you moving forward as part of our community. And, know if the best decision for you is to take off a semester, we will welcome you back with a big smile when the time is right.
The challenge of this pandemic has been to find what Aristotle calls the “golden mean”—the virtuous place between two extremes. Rather than being fearful or foolhardy, we are choosing to be faithful. Faithfulness can be understood as a willingness to trust. And so we’ll trust in the best scientific practices available to us. We’ll trust in the care we have for each other, which will shape the different ways we need to interact right now. Ultimately, we’ll place our trust in God who is faithful to His promises (cf. Hebrews 10:23). Because He is trustworthy we can be courageous and calm in times of adversity.
Fellow Saints, we were made for this moment in time. I can’t wait to see you soon.
Sincerely,
Dr. John Cech
President, Carroll College