KRVN Chat with the Chancellor

Ronnie Green Author

07/06/2020 Added

6 Plays

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Ronnie Green talks about plans for the upcoming fall semester; construction that continues across the UNL campus; how some new initiatives and commissions on campus work to make UNL a more open and inclusive environment for everyone; and what the 4th of July means to him.

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[00:00:00.140]Brandon Benitz with the Rural Radio Network
[00:00:01.970]on our weekly chat with the chancellor
[00:00:03.850]here in the summer of 2020 semester.
[00:00:05.860]This week, once again, joined by a special guest,
[00:00:08.090]Dr. Ronnie Green,
[00:00:09.040]the chancellor at the University of Nebraska Lincoln.
[00:00:11.630]Dr. Green, you announced a return to on-campus teaching
[00:00:14.810]and learning for the fall semester.
[00:00:16.840]Beyond adjusting the academic calendar,
[00:00:19.080]I would imagine it seems like it's going to be a game
[00:00:21.830]of trying to hit the moving target three months out.
[00:00:24.960]So what are some of the other components of your plan
[00:00:28.030]for the upcoming fall and what that might look like?
[00:00:30.720]Well, Brandon, we did make the decision
[00:00:33.260]back in late April, early May,
[00:00:35.920]that it was really important to our campus,
[00:00:39.920]to our students, for us to be able to have
[00:00:43.097]as close to a normal upcoming fall semester as possible
[00:00:47.820]for all of our community,
[00:00:49.307]and when you're thinking about a student body
[00:00:52.810]that's just over 25,000 students,
[00:00:55.730]that has students from all over Nebraska
[00:00:58.460]and 130 countries around the world and every U.S. state,
[00:01:02.760]that community is really one that comes from everywhere,
[00:01:06.840]and planning for that in the ongoing challenges of COVID-19
[00:01:11.430]and where we would be in that challenge ahead,
[00:01:14.774]have made us really think hard and work hard
[00:01:18.540]about how to have that upcoming fall term be successful
[00:01:22.393]while realizing that we're going to need to be able
[00:01:25.080]to accommodate the conditions that we're under
[00:01:28.240]and to be first driven by public health
[00:01:30.440]and by public safety, but we are really looking forward
[00:01:33.020]to the fall term and our planning has gone
[00:01:36.010]really, really well and is just about complete
[00:01:39.950]for our students to come back to the university
[00:01:43.430]beginning on August the 14th.
[00:01:45.750]One of the first things that we did was
[00:01:49.110]to adjust our academic calendar based on what we thought
[00:01:53.370]would be the best for our student body and our faculty
[00:01:57.000]and our staff and the greater community in the state.
[00:02:00.520]We looked at that really hard,
[00:02:02.770]relative to what the virus could look like
[00:02:06.110]over that period of time and made the decision
[00:02:08.840]to actually move our start date back a week earlier
[00:02:11.830]to August the 17th.
[00:02:13.610]That first week that we'll do with remote instruction
[00:02:17.700]to allow our students to get back to Lincoln
[00:02:20.080]from all over the planet and get them back safely.
[00:02:24.150]Many students, as you can imagine,
[00:02:25.990]already had housing contracts set up prior to COVID-19
[00:02:30.250]for the fall, so we wanted to be sure we could accommodate
[00:02:32.860]getting them back close to their original plans.
[00:02:36.090]And then we'll start in person classes and instruction
[00:02:39.470]on August the 24th.
[00:02:41.360]We'll go straight through the fall with no Labor Day break
[00:02:45.080]that we would traditionally have,
[00:02:46.580]no fall break that we would traditionally have in October,
[00:02:50.460]go through to Thanksgiving and have finals
[00:02:53.900]just before Thanksgiving and be completely done
[00:02:56.930]with our fall semester prior to our students
[00:02:59.620]spreading back out, going to their homes
[00:03:01.545]and their home communities at the time of Thanksgiving.
[00:03:05.600]That's also allowing us, after Thanksgiving,
[00:03:09.520]to do something we've never done before,
[00:03:11.710]where we are going to have a intercession term
[00:03:15.450]from right after Thanksgiving,
[00:03:17.450]up to the Christmas holiday time, a three week period
[00:03:20.270]that will be an online offering of courses for our students
[00:03:24.280]and an intercession period.
[00:03:26.130]We're really excited about that
[00:03:28.310]and already have seen great interest
[00:03:30.840]from our student body and what they can do to continue
[00:03:33.960]their education during that period of time
[00:03:36.350]where the risk might be higher to be traveling,
[00:03:39.240]just based on normal flu season expectations.
[00:03:43.330]We're also planning the spring now,
[00:03:45.550]and we haven't finalized the schedule yet,
[00:03:47.840]but we're honing in on a similar proposal for the spring
[00:03:51.380]that would allow us to do a second three week intercession
[00:03:54.610]from right after New Year's until the end of January.
[00:03:58.590]And to start our spring classes just slightly later
[00:04:01.870]on February 1st and move through
[00:04:04.850]to the same kind of end date in early May
[00:04:08.090]with no spring break.
[00:04:09.610]It's kind of the same mirror image, if you will,
[00:04:11.790]of what we're proposing in the fall.
[00:04:13.600]So schedules have changed.
[00:04:15.040]We feel good about that moving forward.
[00:04:17.740]We have also worked really, really hard
[00:04:20.080]around public health protection for all in our community,
[00:04:24.310]our students, certainly, and our faculty, our staff,
[00:04:27.300]visitors to our campus and the community in Lincoln
[00:04:30.330]and around Lincoln as well.
[00:04:33.110]We've instituted a facial covering policy
[00:04:35.640]that will be required in all campus facilities.
[00:04:39.230]We think that is smart, based on science,
[00:04:42.230]based on what we know gives us the greatest protection
[00:04:46.200]for all involved and our community
[00:04:49.140]has embraced that really well.
[00:04:51.180]And I've already instituted it on campus.
[00:04:54.010]Currently, we're working really hard around our facilities
[00:04:58.090]and enhancing our facilities
[00:05:00.020]and enhancing our personal protective equipment.
[00:05:02.950]All of our community will be provided facial coverings,
[00:05:06.010]will be provided hand sanitizer,
[00:05:08.160]and strong re-cleaning and disinfecting classroom spaces
[00:05:12.170]and public spaces within each use.
[00:05:15.510]We're going to follow social distancing practices
[00:05:18.270]of a minimum of six feet required,
[00:05:20.090]the current guidance that we have from the CDC,
[00:05:23.380]in all of our facilities,
[00:05:25.130]which means that our classes will be based on that premise.
[00:05:29.610]So we have analyzed every classroom space,
[00:05:33.050]every facility that we have on our campus,
[00:05:35.730]we've designed how to have that six foot distancing
[00:05:38.467]within each of those instructive spaces across our campuses.
[00:05:42.300]And that means that the density in those classes
[00:05:44.870]will be lower, just as a consequence of the spacing,
[00:05:48.870]realizing that our classes will be a mixture of students
[00:05:52.090]that are in the class and students who are piped
[00:05:55.110]into the class virtually as classes scale up in size,
[00:05:59.660]but all students will be in classes
[00:06:02.150]for a portion of their instruction in each class.
[00:06:06.059]Our students feel strongly about that.
[00:06:08.910]They feel good about it,
[00:06:10.240]and we know the value of being on campus,
[00:06:13.190]the value of being in that learning environment,
[00:06:15.870]is so high and our students have been clear with us
[00:06:20.670]that they need that.
[00:06:22.440]That's a strong part of their educational journey.
[00:06:25.770]And so with those accommodations,
[00:06:28.430]we're working hard for that fall semester
[00:06:30.810]to be a really exciting and robust one.
[00:06:32.970]And I gotta be honest with you, Brandon,
[00:06:34.747]we are just beyond, I can't even use the word here,
[00:06:41.020]beyond just needing our students back,
[00:06:43.630]wanting our students back to be on the campus
[00:06:46.740]and to get engaged back in our academic mission.
[00:06:49.680]So we're looking forward to the fall.
[00:06:51.140]Classes will start, as I said,
[00:06:52.930]remotely on August the 17th and then our full student body
[00:06:56.390]will be back on the 24th.
[00:06:57.840]And we're looking forward to that fall semester.
[00:07:01.470]Chancellor, the decreased activity on campus
[00:07:03.530]late in the spring and through this summer
[00:07:05.220]has allowed for a number of construction projects
[00:07:07.440]to continue at UNL,
[00:07:08.800]including a 46.5 million dollar demolition
[00:07:11.910]and replacement of the Mabel Lee Hall,
[00:07:14.350]and then, in mid June,
[00:07:15.530]phase one of the Nebraska Engineering Building Project
[00:07:18.410]hit another milestone when the first steel beam
[00:07:21.220]was put in place.
[00:07:22.730]Give us an update on, to use a phrase from Dr. Gold,
[00:07:26.670]the garden of cranes that continues to grow
[00:07:29.540]across the campus there in Lincoln.
[00:07:31.550]Yes, it is a garden of cranes.
[00:07:33.640]I think I may have said this to you before, Brandon,
[00:07:38.340]in previous conversations,
[00:07:39.820]I can remember back to like 2011, 12, 13 in Lincoln.
[00:07:45.830]I called it the time of the cranes, if you will,
[00:07:48.540]in and around downtown Lincoln,
[00:07:50.210]as Haymarket was being redeveloped
[00:07:52.100]and Pinnacle Bank Arena was being built,
[00:07:53.930]our new Hawks Hall Business Building at UNL
[00:07:56.480]was being constructed, a number of major things downtown
[00:07:59.600]were being constructed at that time,
[00:08:01.140]and we're kind of back in the front end of that again,
[00:08:03.720]with those two facilities that you mentioned
[00:08:06.770]that now are underway, just in the last two weeks,
[00:08:11.140]the last parts of the former Mabel Lee hall,
[00:08:15.040]housing part of our College of Education and Human Sciences,
[00:08:17.680]originally, was the Women's Physical Ed and Rec Building
[00:08:20.970]on campus when it was originally built.
[00:08:23.660]That's now been removed.
[00:08:25.550]The facility is down and the construction is commencing
[00:08:29.720]on a new 46 and a half million dollar anchor home
[00:08:33.020]for our College of Education and Human Sciences,
[00:08:35.410]so we're excited about that.
[00:08:36.710]It's on schedule and on time.
[00:08:39.140]And then as you mentioned,
[00:08:41.020]the phase one redevelopment of our College of Engineering
[00:08:45.080]and the Scott Engineering Center,
[00:08:46.990]and what was the link of that building
[00:08:49.230]over to Nebraska Hall, the link has been also removed
[00:08:53.455]and the steel beams are now coming out of the ground.
[00:08:57.130]And the initial work on that new facility,
[00:09:00.130]about a $75 million project that will enhance
[00:09:04.130]the Mechanical Materials Engineering Department
[00:09:06.640]and Civil Engineering Department components
[00:09:09.000]of the College of Engineering.
[00:09:10.860]And then we are far into the planning stages
[00:09:15.710]for design phases for two additional big projects
[00:09:20.580]that we expect to start in the coming year,
[00:09:22.970]the new Keywood Hall,
[00:09:24.810]the second phase of Engineering's expansion
[00:09:28.080]that will be an instructional facility
[00:09:30.120]for the entire college new facility added
[00:09:33.030]to the Engineering Complex,
[00:09:34.850]an anchor gift from the Keywood Corporation,
[00:09:37.010]a 85 million dollar project that's finalizing its design
[00:09:40.530]for a start.
[00:09:41.363]And then the Go Big Athletics Facility Project
[00:09:45.200]also is nearing the end of its design
[00:09:47.780]that we'll be finalizing in September
[00:09:50.240]and hoping to move forward with that project as well.
[00:09:53.200]So big, big projects.
[00:09:55.080]What I shouldn't not mention,
[00:09:56.910]that there are two that are just about done
[00:09:59.492]or nearing completion.
[00:10:01.210]The Nebraska East Union on the East campus at UNL
[00:10:05.230]has had a close to $30 million renovation on that facility
[00:10:09.440]that's now in its final stages, set to reopen this fall
[00:10:13.720]and is a brand new reconstructed renovated facility
[00:10:17.450]that's I just can't tell you how excited I am about it
[00:10:20.233]because I spent so much time in that facility
[00:10:22.980]as a student myself,
[00:10:24.800]and it's a great addition to the campus.
[00:10:26.920]And then the C.Y. Thompson Library Facility
[00:10:29.057]on the East campus is undergoing a complete renovation
[00:10:32.290]into a student learning commons for East campus at UNL
[00:10:36.770]that will be done in January of this year.
[00:10:39.640]So it's well advanced into its schedule as well.
[00:10:42.940]So it is a time of cranes, that is very exciting,
[00:10:45.550]even in the times of COVID-19
[00:10:47.380]that we're able to make the progress on those facilities
[00:10:51.290]that are going to be so important to us and to our students
[00:10:54.780]and to our community moving forward.
[00:10:57.910]Brandon Benitz with the Rural Radio Network
[00:10:59.900]and our weekly chat with the chancellor
[00:11:01.660]here in the summer of 2020 semester.
[00:11:03.840]Once again, joined by a special guest, Dr. Ronnie Green,
[00:11:06.650]chancellor at the University of Nebraska Lincoln.
[00:11:08.698]Chancellor, in late April,
[00:11:10.520]you began soliciting applications
[00:11:12.300]for the chancellor's diversity commissions,
[00:11:14.430]the three groups that advise you on issues
[00:11:17.100]that impact equity and inclusiveness there at UNL.
[00:11:20.600]And then after the tragic death of George Floyd
[00:11:22.910]in Minneapolis and the subsequent national conversation
[00:11:25.690]on race relations, you published a post
[00:11:28.280]on June the 5th entitled Now Must Be Different.
[00:11:32.090]Talk about each of those commissions and the post
[00:11:35.600]that you put out on June 5th and how, in the totality,
[00:11:39.270]the circumstances, they all work together
[00:11:41.410]to make UNL a more open and inclusive environment
[00:11:44.520]for everyone.
[00:11:46.070]Well, Brandon, certainly we have had
[00:11:48.920]a tremendous amount of emphasis and planning
[00:11:52.130]and thinking about inclusive excellence
[00:11:55.030]for the University of Nebraska and what that means for us
[00:11:58.729]at UNL back for a number of years.
[00:12:01.940]And we are into that journey already,
[00:12:05.600]where we have brought in leadership at the university
[00:12:09.430]with a hiring of our very first vice chancellor
[00:12:12.110]for diversity and inclusion, Dr. Marco Barker,
[00:12:15.040]who joined us in our leadership team
[00:12:17.120]at the university last April.
[00:12:19.020]He's been here just now over a year.
[00:12:21.240]He has developed, along with his team that he has assembled,
[00:12:26.120]a plan for diversity and inclusion for UNL moving forward.
[00:12:31.330]It's a key part of our five year strategic plan
[00:12:34.090]that we launched this past year, our end 2025 plan.
[00:12:38.350]There has been development of a strategic plan for that
[00:12:41.920]for our campus in enhancing the diversity of our faculty
[00:12:45.517]and the retention and success of diversity in our faculty,
[00:12:49.370]as well as increasing the diversity of our student body,
[00:12:53.090]continuing that important work.
[00:12:55.700]He's had a council on inclusive excellence and diversity
[00:12:58.730]that has been formed across the institution.
[00:13:01.130]There are about 65 members of that council
[00:13:03.560]representing every arm and sector of the university campus,
[00:13:08.300]and they are hard at work in all of that as well.
[00:13:10.990]So all of that has been occurring,
[00:13:13.000]certainly over the last six weeks,
[00:13:15.760]as events around terrible deaths that have been associated
[00:13:20.780]with what are now seen as racial profiling
[00:13:24.187]in law enforcement and the gravity that those brought
[00:13:28.880]to the fore and the conversations that have been elicited
[00:13:32.640]about systemic racism in our country are important
[00:13:37.050]and absolutely important for us to really confront
[00:13:40.960]at this time.
[00:13:41.810]And I did say on June the 5th, which was kind of a week
[00:13:45.490]after much of the protests that we saw at that time,
[00:13:49.720]including in Lincoln and Omaha and in Nebraska
[00:13:53.161]over the death of George Floyd,
[00:13:55.760]that now is a different time.
[00:13:58.130]And this really does need to be very clearly addressed
[00:14:03.130]and understood by all of us.
[00:14:06.210]So we're in the process at UNL as we speak,
[00:14:10.160]literally next week, I plan to announce the appointment
[00:14:14.160]of a number of faculty co-leads for assisting
[00:14:18.230]the University of Nebraska Lincoln,
[00:14:19.777]what we're referring to as the journey
[00:14:22.150]on anti-racism and racial equity,
[00:14:24.960]including education of our campus and our community
[00:14:29.110]around those issues and full understanding of them,
[00:14:33.080]as well as a clear path to enhancement of the diversity
[00:14:37.300]of our university and of our campus.
[00:14:39.360]So this is critically important for us
[00:14:42.890]and we're committed to it.
[00:14:44.900]And I can't tell you the conversations
[00:14:48.610]that I have had personally,
[00:14:50.610]and with our leadership team over the last several weeks
[00:14:54.260]with faculty members, with students,
[00:14:57.210]with community members of people of color and the stories
[00:15:01.970]that they have shared personally, with me,
[00:15:05.100]including ones here at home with us,
[00:15:08.184]I've learned a tremendous amount.
[00:15:10.380]I will tell you that I have,
[00:15:12.360]and we need to take action to be different moving forward.
[00:15:16.840]So yes, we are excited about that.
[00:15:18.860]We'll be putting things into play beginning
[00:15:21.710]with the start of the school year,
[00:15:23.670]and I'm really looking forward to working closely
[00:15:26.290]with what will be four faculty co-leads,
[00:15:29.040]who will help us to embrace this journey
[00:15:32.050]that we're going forward with at UNL.
[00:15:34.860]Dr. Green, as we celebrate Independence Day this weekend,
[00:15:38.260]what does the 4th of July mean to you
[00:15:40.560]and what will the Green family be up to this weekend?
[00:15:43.920]I am consciously aware, right?
[00:15:46.540]This is, what, number 244 for us
[00:15:49.034]as the United States of America, or celebrating that,
[00:15:52.670]through the signing of the Declaration of Independence
[00:15:55.500]and our July 4th holiday.
[00:15:58.810]This is a particularly poignant one for me
[00:16:01.440]because of the, not only the challenge that we're under
[00:16:05.810]with COVID-19 and a global pandemic that none of us
[00:16:08.810]have ever experienced in our lifetimes
[00:16:11.320]or very few in our society would have experienced
[00:16:14.420]anything like this or could remember it,
[00:16:17.000]as well as the racial unrest that we're experiencing
[00:16:21.020]and seeing the division that seems to be too ever present
[00:16:26.030]in our culture and society,
[00:16:28.206]it's a strong one for me, just in celebrating
[00:16:31.940]that United States of America and that we are blessed
[00:16:36.830]to live in the freest and most open
[00:16:40.770]and country of the people in the world.
[00:16:44.460]And that experiment that was started in 1776,
[00:16:48.837]I was nine years old
[00:16:51.050]when I remember the 200th anniversary of my home county
[00:16:54.520]in Virginia and the celebration of that.
[00:16:56.630]I was 15 years old at the 200th anniversary of our country
[00:17:03.020]in 1976, and this experiment that we live in
[00:17:08.000]is still the most profound example of life and liberty
[00:17:12.800]that the world has ever seen.
[00:17:15.040]And I'm proud to be an American.
[00:17:16.980]And I still am proud even with the challenges
[00:17:20.190]that we have to face and reminded of how important it is
[00:17:23.420]that we are a United States of America.
[00:17:25.900]And I'm very proud to be a citizen of this great country.
[00:17:29.810]So I'm going to be celebrating with our family.
[00:17:33.200]One of the things that we learned when we moved back
[00:17:35.130]to Lincoln a number of years ago,
[00:17:36.510]was people really like fireworks here,
[00:17:39.410]and we've already been hearing it well in advance.
[00:17:42.990]We've been hearing the fireworks go off for days already.
[00:17:45.720]So I'm sure we're gonna hear a lot of fireworks
[00:17:47.710]and see a lot of great things in the sky
[00:17:49.197]and our family's going to be together.
[00:17:51.260]And we're very grateful for that.
[00:17:53.940]Our family of four adult children are all here with us,
[00:17:57.790]and we're excited about that.
[00:17:59.030]So I'm very proud to be an American,
[00:18:00.640]and I'm going to be celebrating the great country
[00:18:03.130]that we live in, and God bless America.
[00:18:05.880]Chancellor Green, the last word is yours.
[00:18:08.750]What else is going on on campus at UNL right now?
[00:18:12.540]Obviously we are deep into, as we talked about earlier,
[00:18:15.980]preparing for the return of our students and our faculty
[00:18:19.110]to campus here shortly in person, and it's just,
[00:18:23.270]can't be anything but terribly excited about that.
[00:18:26.460]So that's certainly our focus and what we're doing
[00:18:29.630]to make sure that's safe and that's going to be successful
[00:18:33.100]for all in our community, moving into the fall.
[00:18:36.710]Also trying to think really hard
[00:18:38.220]about how to have everything surrounding that that we can,
[00:18:41.950]a lot of effort going into thinking about athletics
[00:18:44.340]right now, and a lot of hopeful excitement there as well.
[00:18:47.240]So we are deep at it and focused on being ready to go
[00:18:52.360]on August the 17th.
[00:18:54.840]That was Dr. Ronnie Green,
[00:18:55.940]the chancellor at the University of Nebraska Lincoln,
[00:18:58.270]joining us once again as a special guest
[00:19:00.090]on our chat with the chancellor here
[00:19:02.000]in the summer of 2020 semester.
[00:19:04.040]With the Rural Radio Network, this is Brandon Benitz.

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