After Winter Break, what’s next for Iowa Lakes?

By Mitchell Hagenson, Staff Writer

As Iowa Lakes students prepare to finish up finals for this semester, that can only mean one thing for the students, winter break. Winter Break can mean many things for the students at college. Things like celebrating Christmas with friends and family, getting together with loved ones to watch the ball drop to celebrate the new year or maybe it means that it’s just another month in the calendar. No matter what it means to the students, once that break is over, here comes the next semester. As the next semester comes along, students usually like to prepare before they go back to college, but instead of wondering what the students are doing to prepare themselves next semester, the question you should be asking yourself is what is the college doing to prepare themselves for when the students return for next semester?

Scott Stokes, who is the Executive Dean of the Estherville Campus would talk about how the college usually prepares itself for when the students come back from winter break.

Winter Break is really just a break between fall and spring semester,” said Stokes. ” Many of our professors and instructors are preparing to update their spring classes for before winter break starts at the college. Our offices are still running until the end of the semester and those offices are usually busy at the end of this semester. Even though our offices close on the 18th, we still are helping the students prepare themselves for next semester by helping them register for classes. Also once our students are done with finals, our building gets really quiet. Once our building gets really empty, then our cleaning staff takes a deep dive into our cleaning. They always do a great job cleaning our building throughout the year even with the coronavirus in our world today, but once the building gets more quieter, then they usually start to move chairs and tables out and then they really start to scrub the floors those last few days before we close for the holidays,” said Stokes.

He would then continue to talk about if this usual process changed this year due to the coronavirus.

“Our process that we did between fall or spring this year is going to be very similar to what we did last year,” said Stokes. “The things that are going to change have already changed, because at this point we have a lot of hand sanitizer and cleaning supplies than we usually do. The policies for face coverings, social distancing and our meetings were virtual instead of face-to-face, so we are already kind of in that process, so the break itself is pretty much going to be the same. The big thing for us is that our buildings aren’t going to be open to the public. Our students, faculty, staff have access to our buildings, but we won’t just have random foot traffic. We will only allow people coming in by appointment only. That’s probably the big change we have at the college, because as finals end, we have students getting ready for the next semester and we will have a bunch of foot traffic to deal with, so that’s why we only can have people come in by appointment only,” said Stokes.

Austin Franck, who is a current sophomore at Iowa Lakes would talk about what his plans are for winter break this year.

“I’m currently spending my time this winter break with my family down in Titusville, Florida,” said Franck. “This place is located towards the east coast near a placed called SpaceX. This place is located at the Kennedy Space Center, which is one of the few places in the world SpaceX launches reusable rockets from. Not too many people can say the once a week, they can see rockets blasting off and landing themselves from their front yard. I’m mainly spending my winter break here, because well one, it’s warm. I get to skip half of the Iowa winter. . Also, the other reason being is that I’m so close to the launch pad at SpaceX, I can see the rockets close by and I can hear them live. It’s a very cool feeling when your

Logan Koedam, who is a current sophomore and athlete on the Iowa Lakes Wrestling team would also talk about what his plans are for this winter break this year.

“I’m mainly just working and training to possibly win the a national title for my team at Iowa Lakes,” said Koedam. “Even though all of us haven’t been able to actual compete this year to the coronavirus, that doesn’t mean that we can’t stop practicing. We will all resume practice at the college when we all return after spring break, but until then I will be training at home in my home town of Ireton, IA with my high school to help prepare myself for this year’s wrestling season. It’s good to know where I started and why I love wrestling in the first place,” said Koedam.

Julie Williams, who is the Executive Dean of Students would talk about what are some of the main goals that college always does when it comes to preparing themselves for when the students come back next semester.

“With everything that is going on in our world with the coronavirus, our main focus is on the health needs of our students,” said Williams. “We are all learning new information everyday when it comes to the coronavirus. Our janitors and custodians always work hard on keeping our students and staff healthy whether they are on campus or not. We offer masks and hand sanitizers when people walk in the building and we always make sure that they feel healthy when they return back to the college. That’s our main goal when it comes to staying safe during the coronavirus.”

Stokes would then give his advice to the students who need help to get themselves prepared for next semester when they come back from winter break next semester.

“My first piece advice that I would give to the students would have to be to make sure that you register for classes,” said Stokes. “Make sure that you have your books ready to go for next semester too, because then you don’t have to stress out over break and that you don’t have to worry about what to bring for spring classes. My next piece advice would be to just enjoy your time off. It’s just been a crazy year for everyone, so find some time to relax and reenergize yourself. My last piece of advice is to staff safe and healthy over break. Make smart choices that you can come back and start the semester healthy. It would suck to have someone on campus get sick or be quarantined, so be smart too.

As you can see, the college has prepared many ways for the students to stay healthy and it safe when it comes to returning back to the college next semester. There are doing things like cleaning and wiping down all of the surface areas at the college to providing masks and hand sanitizers when you come back to the college. Even though we are all on winter break, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t prepare ourselves for next semester and to keep ourselves healthy and safe during winter break. Let’s all do our part and keep each other healthy and safe during winter break.