Counseling and Advisement services adjust to ‘New Normal’

During the shutdown of Citrus College last March, the school’s student service programs had to make necessary adjustments suddenly.

 Dean of Counseling Programs and Services Nicole Smith Ph.D. said the Counseling program was helped by some fortunate timing to assist their handling of the shift to remote advisement.

 Pre-shutdown, plans were made to use the video meeting service Zoom to work with the Counseling department’s new online appointment scheduling tool. The near completion of this contract allowed for the service to be fast-tracked into use once the counseling department became strictly remote, Smith said.

“It really only took us about two days to turn around all of our services to be able to provide everything we supplied in person, remotely,” Smith said.

Smith also explained that the counseling staff learned the ins and outs of Zoom on the fly as a result of some quick training during the beginnings of the shutdown. She credited small group training sessions that allowed the counselors to create accounts and learn all of the aspects of the program.

“We worked very hard in our team to get everybody going and to get the counselors trained and feeling comfortable with using Zoom to meet with students,” Smith said. 

 Dean of Students Maryann Tolano-Leveque Ph.D. sees the shift to remote services as necessary during the school shutdown and, ultimately, another facet to serving Citrus students once campus is opened.

“I don’t see our use of paper forms returning even when we are able to return to campus. I believe this is what is meant when the media talks about ‘new normal,’” Tolano-Leveque said in an email. “The technology that we have leveraged to support students is here to stay and we will continue to learn and grow so that we can support students using multiple platforms.”

The advent of online resources such as Formstacks and Smartsheets has allowed the various student services, such as Counseling and Advisement and Admissions and Records, to continue to support students, Tolano-Leveque said. These programs allow students to turn in documents online rather than in person.

The necessary adjustments by the student service programs are expected to be a mainstay in the future. 

“We will continue providing online counseling because I still feel even before the pandemic, a lot of students would feel more comfortable meeting via Zoom or maybe it would work better with their work or school schedule so we will continue offering that service,” Smith said.