For Jennifer Ellis, her involvement in an online education and engagement series has come full circle.
Ellis, an associate professor and director of STEM education (science, technology, engineering and math) at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, will be a featured panelist Friday for an American Association of Blacks in Higher Education (AABHE) webinar entitled “Re-Opening Campus In the Midst Of The Pandemic.”
Since April, AABHE, an individual and institutional member-based organization with sponsorships from colleges and universities throughout the country, Ellis has managed a newly created a webinar series which focuses on the impact of the pandemic on colleges and universities.
“I have been leading this online education series since it started and have collaborated with executive leaders on other campuses. We do prep sessions beforehand, so having that kind of level of access has been great,” she said.
The 1 p.m. EDT webinar on Friday focuses on the reopening of campuses during the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects on faculty, teaching and learning. Shewanee Howard-Baptiste, an associate professor in the UTC Department of Health and Human Performance and an AABHE board member, will head the meeting.
Ellis will be part of a panel comprised by Mordecai Brownlee, vice president of student success at St. Philip’s College; Carla Major, assistant vice chancellor for human resources at Delgado Community College; Lonnie Booker, director of emergency management for Kansas Wesleyan University’s Center for Public Policy and Safety; and Barbara Johnson, provost at Arkansas Tech University.
The webinar series has addressed several education-focused topics since it launched, including, accreditation, finances and a virtual writing boot camp. “We utilized the talents here at UTC to support this effort.”
“Shewanee and I led the boot camp, which was a six-week experience,” Ellis said. “Dr. Michelle Deardorff was our writing consultant and provided professional development for our participants, and Dr. Hinsdale Bernard—who just recently retired—provided a lunch-and-learn session on research methodology.”
Ellis joined UTC in 2011 as an assistant professor, became the STEM director in 2015 and received a promotion to associate professor in 2016. In fall 2019, she was one of the pioneering UTC faculty members who moved into campus housing for the purpose of greater engagement, accessibility and approachability for students.
As a West Campus Housing resident herself, the reopening of campus this year in the midst of a pandemic particularly hits home.
“For me and probably even Dr. Howard-Baptiste—who also lives on campus—it’s a lot different for us because we’ve never left,” Ellis said. “Seeing campus reopening and students moving back in, the reality of this is real. This is completely different than any other Move In day that we’ve ever experienced, moving in with masks and socially distancing.
“Just being able to visualize and experience the different phases of campus because I’ve never left has been quite an experience in and of itself.”
