Des Moines Area Community College Perry VanKirk Career Center is adjusting to education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

DMACC Perry Director Eddie Diaz tells Raccoon Valley Radio they’ve transitioned a majority of their classes to an online format. The building is also closed to the public to avoid added risk to staff and students who attend on-site. 

Diaz says it’s been a team effort to get the fall semester up and running, “The unsung heroes are those that nobody ever hears about. We call them instructional designers; our team of DMACC folks that have been working on the online learning for a decade-plus has built a pretty strong system. Nobody ever really sees them unless we have questions for them. The other people are advisors who really are trying to transition to some of the new challenges of online learning. The last group is our instructors. They spent part of the summer taking courses to get ready for it, and now they’re just digging into the details of running online courses.”

Diaz encourages those who are weary about attending college online to reach out to the staff at DMACC as they have many resources available to ease the transition. You can hear more from Diaz on today’s Perry Fareway Let’s Talk Dallas County program on KDLS and RaccoonValleyRadio.com