This spring, Scripps College undertook a series of critical measures to protect the safety of the Scripps community in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. The health of our students, faculty, and staff was paramount as we developed a careful, timely, and empathetic response to the rapid changes posed by this outbreak. The following are some of the ways we have navigated those changes on behalf of our campus community:
- Refunded room and board to students who were required to leave campus early upon the temporary closure of campus
- Supported students’ transition off-campus with approximately $3 million in emergency aid used for:
- Software to deliver courses online
- Hardware to deliver courses online and have staff work remotely
- Technology support for students with financial need
- Packing, storage units, shipping, and moving support
- Extra meals
- Intensive cleaning
- Work to physical spaces for isolation quarters
- Emergency plane tickets for study abroad students
- Established emergency response funds to cover the areas hit the hardest by the pandemic and to provide students with aid to cover travel, technology, and other essentials
- Began distribution of CARES Act funding to students in need, with the College using its own funds to provide additional funding to those students (e.g. DACA and international) who fell outside federal guidelines for CARES Act aid
- Established a new Community Action Grant through the Laspa Center for Leadership to fund COVID-19 relief efforts led by our students to help their communities better cope with the impact of the pandemic
- Restructured our dining and service approach to provide individually packaged meals to the students, faculty, and staff who had to remain on campus
- To limit disruptions to student services, converted nearly all Scripps offices to fully remote operations, including academic advising, career counseling, faculty office hours, the Writing Center, SCORE, and tutoring services
- Found new ways to enhance online instruction even for classes more difficult to translate to a virtual environment, such as dance and science labs
- In tandem with The Claremont Colleges, offered an additional telehealth provider (TimelyMD) to expand mental health support for our students
- Modified services from the Tiernan Field House to include accessible self-care virtual programming including workouts, meditation and mindfulness sessions, de-stress activities, and access to virtual medical services and mental health counseling for students
- Expanded career support for graduating seniors and recent alums through CP&R’s online career development workshops and personalized phone outreach to each member of the Class of 2020
- Developed the Scripps Presents @Home series to bring uplifting entertainment from past and upcoming Scripps Presents authors, musicians, and performers to our community
- Successfully converted cornerstone Scripps events, including Capstone Day and our Senior Art Exhibition, to virtual events
- Launched Career Conversations, a free virtual series for alumnae on job support and emotional wellbeing in uncertain times
- Mitigated rising expenses and revenue loss from canceled events, room and board refunds, etc. by establishing a hiring freeze, placing a moratorium on salary increases, suspending non-essential expenditures, reducing compensation for President Lara Tiedens and Scripps senior staff, and establishing a 10 percent budget cut for fiscal year 2021
- Issued refunds to all registrants for Reunion Weekend 2020