FROM THE OFFICE OF THE CHANCELLOR

UA Cossatot understands that COVID-19 has altered our lives considerably and getting back to some semblance of normal will be a welcome relief, but we also understand that we are involved in a marathon and not a sprint. We are starting to see businesses across Arkansas ramping up their openings, albeit with proper safety guidelines in place. As for UA Cossatot, we are finishing our spring semester by allowing our technical students to safely complete their requirements on campus. We have UA System – approved and extremely strict guidelines for these students as our campuses are still technically closed to visitors and normal student traffic. Currently we are open for business by email, phone or our website as all employees are either on-campus or connected to campus by Virtual Private Networks.

Our spring graduation has been moved and combined with our December Winter graduation. We feel this is the safest and most prudent way to show our appreciation to all of our graduates.

Our summer terms will be completely on-line but we expect our fall semester to be as close to “normal” as possible. This will include proper safety guidelines for all students and staff. We will have a plan “B” just in case another major COVID-19 outbreak occurs during the fall semester.

This week we launched our UA Cossatot CARES Grant ( https://www.cccua.edu/ua-cossatot-cares-grant ), a $500 grant funded by Federal stimulus funds designed to assist students who were enrolled in the spring semester and who were directly impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak. We received $387,000 earmarked for our students, and there will be more funds available for students that demonstrate continuing hardships due to COVID-19.

Our registration continues to be open for the summer and fall semesters. We have made our entire registration process available online for the safety and convenience of our students. Our website contains all the information students need to register: https://www.cccua.edu. 

We do not know when we will be operating as normal, but rest assured, we will always be here for our students and the community. We just want to take a measured and sensible approach to fully reopening our campuses. As I have said before, these are unprecedented and unexplored times but we will all make it through by working together. You can always find more UA Cossatot information on Facebook (ED88 and UAC) and on our CCCUA.EDU website.

Thank You,

Dr. Steve Cole

Chancellor, UA Cossatot