The closure of Davies Hall has led to classes being relocated all across campus, with some classes being put into spaces that are not fit to be classrooms. Some classes have been moved from classroom to classroom as well. 

Since Davies Hall closed, one of my classes has been in three different classrooms. So, including the Davies Hall classroom, that class was in four different classrooms within six weeks. 

There isn’t a way for students to feel comfortable and be able to focus on school when they are constantly being moved from spot to spot. 

I know it is challenging to relocate thousands of students and professors when a building is suddenly closed, but the Los Rios Community College District and American River College leadership need to do everything in their power to ensure that students and professors have a consistent workspace that fits all the needs of the class moving forward.

The first was a study area in the Learning Resource Center, which was more like a conference room than an actual classroom. We have a smaller class, but it still felt really small. 

There was one computer in the corner of the room stuck behind a big TV. Professors had to connect their laptops and go through Zoom to conduct workshops. 

We use computers all the time, and the only option was the computers that were in the LRC common area, which were for everyone to use, so holding a class out in the study area would be distracting for other students trying to work or study. 

There was also an issue with scheduling at first, with the space being scheduled to use for studying during the time we were supposed to be in class. 

After this room, we moved to another room in the LRC, which was normally used for the college’s Writing Across the Curriculum program. 

A student even walked into our class because they were there for WAC and that was the space it was normally held in. This causes confusion for everyone, and forces people to find other spaces to work in.

We were in that classroom for a day, and then moved to the Technical Education West portables.

This will hopefully be the last classroom change of the semester, but it is hard to get comfortable when the thought of another classroom change is always there. 

This constant change has made it hard for students to be able to focus on their education, and the college and district leadership should make sure every class has a space that they can go to that is set up for a successful learning environment. 

The college leadership should have stuck with the original plan of moving things online for two weeks, in order to be certain that every class was put into a place that fit all of their needs and wouldn’t be moving to different classrooms all across the campus. 

The handling of the Davies Hall closure, and what happened after it, was a failure by the district and college leadership that has led to growing distrust from some faculty, staff and students.