Bakersfield College has entered wave one of transitioning face-to-face classes into an online modality as of March 12.

Although there have been no confirmed cases of the coronavirus (COVID-19) in Kern County, campus administration has remained active with updating students and faculty on the status of BC.

The campus remains open, but only faculty that are ready to take their classes online are recommended to in order to help prevent the possible outbreak that could occur according to Sonya Christian, the president of BC, in a campus-wide update teleconference.

Christian’s goal is to be proactive rather than reactive to the rapid spreading disease.

“We are taking a proactive approach and making plans, should events dictate modification of campus operations,” Nicky Damania, BC’s Director of Student Life, said. “Vice President of Instruction, Billie Jo Rice, is working with faculty to ensure continuity of education by making use of tools and resources available to us.”

There is a possibility that all classes would be put online to reduce contact between students and faculty, but that has yet to be implemented.

“We just want to be good stewards for our community, we want to limit the number of people that are all coming together. It is really about mitigating that close contact because of how contagious it is,” said Cindy Collier, acting Director of Student Health & Wellness Center and special advisor to President Christian.

Along with in-person classes being assessed daily, all on campus events were either canceled or rescheduled for the following semester as of March 10.

“The strong recommendation as of [March 10] was that any large public event should be canceled or postponed or switched to an online modality if that was available,” said Reggie Williams, philosophy professor at BC and director of the Levan Center on BC’s main campus. “As the Levan Center director, I made the executive decision to go ahead and cancel all the remaining large gathering events.”

Dr. Eladio Bobadilla’s presentation at BC’s Delano campus was rescheduled out of caution not only for the people attending, but also Bobadilla’s family. According to Oliver Rosales, a BC history professor, Bobadilla has elderly family he was planning on visiting while in Delano who would be susceptible to COVID-19.

CCCAA suspended all spring semester sports in consideration of the student athletes and their well-being. This suspension was announced on the evening of March 12 and will be in effect until further notice.

“At first, I felt as if the media was blowing things out of proportion [with COVID-19], but as time went on and precautions were being taken by the school, I am taking things much more seriously,” Cindy Nguyen, a business administration major at BC, said.