Campus News

Dr. Wolff outlines Great Falls College’s Business Continuity Plan

Dr, Susan Wolff CEO/Dean of Great Falls College MSU

Good Evening Campus Community,

Please bear with me for the long email. I encourage you to read to the end.

In light of Gov. Steve Bullock's order to shelter in place as of Saturday, March 28, at 12:01 a.m., the Great Falls College MSU Executive Team will put in place the following business continuity plan, which you will read below. I was also saddened to learn tonight that Montana has experienced its first fatality from the COVID-19 virus.

Through your good work, the college already has distance learning and student services in place using a variety of technologies. This week, we put in place telework opportunities for employees to work from home. All of these were put in place to ensure that our students, faculty and staff members remain safe and healthy.

Due to this unprecedented situation, we will all have to continue to adjust, be creative in delivering our classes, labs and services; work with one another to determine grading, scheduling labs, clinicals and hands-on learning.

This unknown can be unsettling because we all have lives, families, and perhaps loved ones at a distance. In the last two decades, our country faced a terrorist act and the Great Recession. But as Americans and Montanans, we learned and rebounded. This is a critical health crisis, bringing hardship and economic upheaval, but we know we will rise once again.

I offer the following information about tools and assistance to help us cope with these challenges:

Student Assistance:
Great Falls Mental Health Triage
Call: (406) 272-1086
Text: (406) 840-4352
Email: GreatFallsPsychTriage@gmail.com

The Employee Assistance Program is available through these methods:
To access the tools offered through this benefit:
Call: 866-750-1327
Website: ibhsolutions.com
- Select Members from the top right corner
- Click on the RBH logo
- Enter your Access Code: MUS
- Click the My Benefits button

Due to the need to protect your health and safety, this Business Continuity plan will be effective at 12:01 a.m. on March 28th, 2020. Great Falls College MSU will go into a shelter in place status. The plan is as follows:

• Facilities personnel will be on campus from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, to monitor the building and receive mail/packages. They will maintain safety protocol of two being in the building at the same time, maintain a safe distance of 6', and use approved sanitation protocol.
• Mail is important to continue operations. Using established health and safety protocols, Ja will come to campus each day to distribute mail and address any critical print jobs.
• The Executive Team will have a schedule by which one or two of us will also be on campus to check area mailboxes and fax machines for anything that needs to be addressed immediately. Our work will also follow established health and safety protocols.
• The Technical Assistance Center can monitor our network and D2L from home to ensure we have our technology and tools available.

Please contact your Division Director for class or student services questions or HR for personnel questions. All of us are available by email or phone. Established meetings using WebEX and other technologies such as Microsoft Teams, will continue. Committees will continue to meet as well using these tools.

If you are in need of something from your office, please contact your ET member for assistance.

During this time, entrance into the building will not be allowed except in the instances outlined above. Only College personnel described above will be allowed on campus during the shelter in place.

In the Governor's Directive he addressed the MUS in its needs to address essential services. Our four year campuses have different circumstances in that they have a handful of students still living in residence halls. Essential services need to be maintained for their safety and health. Some of the campuses also have research labs requiring professor and staff attention. Great Falls College MSU is a commuter campus; therefore, our essential services look different from MSU Bozeman, MSUB and MSUN.

Our communication channels will continue to be robust.

For now, please adhere to the Governor's directive. This is to keep all of us safe, and with a focus of keeping our health care providers safe and not overwhelming our hospitals.

I so appreciate the effort that has gone into keeping us an outstanding institution.

Stay safe, be well.

Dr. Susan J. Wolff, CEO/Dean