By Trenton McMillen

In the early spring of 2020, the coronavirus pandemic quickly swept across the globe prompting the closure of many businesses and educational institutions. 

Oklahoma City Community College was no exception to this. 

Professors and students quickly worked together to find ways to continue school despite not being able to meet on campus. 

Working in the background to ensure remote communication between professors and students would be possible was the Information Technology department here on OCCC’s campus. 

On top of the installation of new equipment and technology, the IT department serves faculty, professors and students through the maintenance of local network infrastructure on campus all the way to maintaining cloud services. 

“The information technology services team covers a lot of ground,” Tim Whisenhunt, Vice President of Information Technology Services, told the Pioneer. “We’re trying to think of ways that are seamless, but also ways that allow us to become more efficient and more effective at what we do. We really have embraced the role of empowering our community; empowering the potential within our community. We’ve provided our faculty with laptops, so they have [the] capability [to work remotely]. The downside of that is there’s no more snow days!” 

In the midst of all the chaos, a new and improved method of distance learning came to be. 

“During the pandemic, the federal government released a lot of money to colleges and universities to upgrade systems and to utilize in ways that would benefit students,” Whisenhunt said. “We’re doing quite a few new things. We’re upgrading classrooms to include the ability to do video conferencing from the classroom. Students are probably utilizing that and seeing that as Zoom meetings in our classrooms. We’re installing 77 of those classrooms on campus. So that’s going to open a lot of doors to be able to reach students in a new way; to incorporate new things into the classroom.” 

Students and faculty can expect to see the majority of the new equipment, consisting of a camera, two large monitors and new teaching stations within classrooms up and running after returning from spring break. 

This will include the ability for professors to share documents and slideshows from their teaching station to students both in the classroom and on Zoom simultaneously. 

Moving forward, there are a lot of gaps still yet to be filled. One of the biggest challenges the IT department currently faces is staffing.  

“We’ve replaced about half of our team in the last few years, so getting people in places to be able to provide that support has been one of the biggest challenges that we’ve had,” Whisenhunt said. 

Despite the challenges, Whisenhunt is very excited and hopeful for the future of technology at Oklahoma City Community College. 

Whisenhunt also invites feedback and suggestions for things that the IT department could be doing better. 

“We are super open to ideas and suggestions, so if there’s a way that information technology services can look at another way to serve our campus community, we’re open to doing that,” he said. “If there’s something we could do better, we want to know that. If there’s something we’re doing pretty good, we don’t mind hearing about that as well!” 

If you are an OCCC community member who needs assistance call the OCCC Information Technology Helpdesk at (405) 682-7777.