The Gardner Institute’s Response to COVID-19

The needs of your students and institution are at the forefront of our planning in regards to COVID 19. We remain your committed and functioning partner in your continuing student success efforts. Our commitment to you will manifest itself in concrete ways over the days and months ahead.

Considering the current situation, we understand if some of the work you are undertaking with us needs to be delayed, as you focus on how best to serve your students.

Many of you have shared with us that presently you need both the flexibility to do what you believe is best for the institution and students you serve, and opportunities to share and learn from others as you do so.

In light of your needs, we are committing to the following:

Flexibility on work in our processes – We will work with your institution to revise process and project timelines. We will extend agreements at no cost for up to six month, as necessary, given your circumstances. You will soon hear from your advisor to discuss your institution's timeline and needs.

Flexibility in the delivery of our professional development activities – While conference registrants will soon receive more details, we are pleased to share starting in April we will deliver the content from the Virtual Gateway Course Experience Conference in a series. Offered to you, at a reduced fee structure, the content will be recorded and archived so you can access it at any time and from any location. We will bring the same approach to other forms of professional development and technical support provided over the months ahead.

Flexibility on grant-funded efforts – For those of you working with us on grant-funded efforts, we are in the process of requesting no-cost extensions on that work. Those extensions, if approved, will allow us to extend the philanthropic funding for the work we are doing with you at no additional cost or issue with the funder.

Virtual Discussion Forums – Starting the week of March 30, you and your colleagues are invited to join virtual drop-in sessions to discuss questions and approaches to managing COVID-19 related teaching, learning, and student success challenges.The conversations will include peers from other institutions as well as staff members from the Gardner Institute. We don’t claim to be experts on all the topics that come up, but we will provide an opportunity for crowdsourcing solutions.

Virtual Suggestion Box – Please tell us how we can serve you during this challenging time. We invite you to use this link to share your ideas on how we can help you and your institution as it works to redesign student success efforts, to meet the teaching, learning, and student success challenges associated with the new digital era and COVID-19. Your suggestions can pertain to a modification in our current work with you and/or new forms of support you might suggest.

Your institution is being asked to rise to unprecedented challenges. Like you we remain deeply committed to equitable and just teaching, learning, and student success outcomes. Collectively we will rise to the COVID-19 challenge.The Gardner Institute is committed to being flexible and listening with compassion and respect about how we can serve you and your institution.