Not long after arriving at Cal State San Marcos in the summer of 2019 as the university’s fourth president, Ellen Neufeldt kicked off her Listening and Learning Tour.
It was Neufeldt’s way of combing a then-unfamiliar campus and discovering the many people and programs that make CSUSM the special place that it is. It was supposed to last for the entire academic year.
By March, of course, the world had devised a different plan. That was when the coronavirus began to affect the United States in earnest, and life as we know it began to change overnight. The physical campus shut down around the middle of that month.
Out the door went the remainder of the in-person Listening and Learning Tour. On a dime, CSUSM pivoted to remote instruction.
Almost a year later, the COVID-19 pandemic still governs much of the daily reality in higher education, though…