Helping Students Rebound from the Pandemic

The global pandemic has affected students at every college, disrupting their lives and forcing some of them to drop out in order to earn money to keep their families intact. And that has driven Tomas Morales, the president of California State University, San Bernadino (CSUSB), which also has a campus in Palm Desert, California, to take concerted actions to assist his students and help them get back on track.

In Morales’ words, “the global pandemic has exacerbated and intensified existing inequities, which CSUSB has been striving to address. Therefore, the primary issues we are grappling with on campus right now come under the heading of COVID-19 impacts.”

Morales, who graduated from SUNY New Paltz and was previously president of the College of Staten Island, was named CSUSB’s president in 2012, so he’s been steering the college for a decade.

Morales leads a college with 16,704 undergraduate students and 1,934 graduate students, where two out of three students (66%) are Hispanic, while 12% are white, 5% African American, 5% Asian, 5% Non-Resident Foreign, 2% Mixed Race, and 3% Unknown.

Many of CSUSB’s students are immigrants or working-class; 81% of them are first-generation college students whose parents did not earn college degrees. And 93% of its students are on financial aid, with the average grant being $8,610. Its three most popular majors are psychology, biology and sociology.

Supporting students through and beyond the pandemic

Morales and his leadership team are focused on helping students rebound from a devastating pandemic. One goal is identifying “what those specific impacts are, what drives those impacts, and then, how we can modify what our university does to mitigate those impacts and help our students succeed,” he said.

Some of the immediate Covid-related impacts included students reducing their course load, leading to more students on probation or simply dropping out or flunking out. A December 2021 student survey revealed that the major factors explaining why students left school were: 1) financial issues related to COVID, 2) COVID status of the student or of a family member, and 3) mental health issues. Currently, CSUSB has six subcommittees aimed at post-pandemic learning, including curriculum, academic support, and connectivity.

Given the damaging effect that the pandemic has had on its students, Morales has targeted several priorities to return the college to normalcy and get more students back on their collegiate track, including: 1) re-engaging and re-enrolling students, 2) expanding credit opportunities with summer/intersession funds, 3) ensuring access to digital degree roadmaps, and 4) eliminating administrative barriers to graduation.