Davis Educational Foundation Awards $25,000 Presidential Grant to Vermont Tech

Grant to support alternative academic delivery

Randolph Center, VT (09/22/2020) — The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically changed the face of higher education in 2020, with most colleges and universities sending their students home to finish the spring semester remotely, and making large-scale changes in how they deliver classes and labs to incoming students in the fall of 2020.

Vermont Tech is among these schools that are shifting instructional delivery methods, and doing so in a very short time frame.

"We completed a Strategic Plan a year ago," explains Vermont Tech President Patricia Moulton, "which included a long-term initiative to design and implement new delivery methods to meet the changing faces of higher education. The pandemic accelerated the timeline for those plans significantly."

Over the spring and summer, Vermont Tech faculty and staff created a hybrid model for the fall semester, offering all classroom instruction online while planning for up to three weeks per class for the important hands-on labs and applied learning that Vermont Tech is known for. This Alternative Academic Delivery model incurred expenses such as training and support staff; purchases of hardware, including laptops and webcams for students and faculty; remote access software; expert consulting; and faculty overload time for designing the courses and labs.

The Davis Educational Foundation provided a Presidential Grant of $25,000 to help fund the costs of this change. "With no warning of the pandemic, these costs in extra IT equipment and support were not budgeted for," says Kellie Campbell, Vermont Tech's Chief Technology Officer. "So this support from the Davis Foundation is greatly appreciated."

The Davis Educational Foundation was established by Stanton and Elisabeth Davis, after Mr. Davis' retirement from Shaw's Supermarkets, Inc.

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