Bob Martin: Joining us today for this episode of Imagine America Radio is Brent Jenkins, campus president, Lincoln Tech – Indianapolis, Indiana. The topic of today’s episode of Imagine America Radio is the current coronavirus epidemic and how this particular campus of Lincoln Tech has adapted to the national crisis to continue providing services to employees and current students.

Brent, thank you for joining us.

Brent Jenkins: Thank you for having me.

Bob: For our audience’s sake, could you just please basically outline what you have done to respond to the coronavirus, please?

Brent: Sure, Bob. We, like many other schools, transitioned to a distance-learning format. What this does, this enables us to continue to deliver all of the content (the knowledge piece of the program) so that when our students return to the campus—which we hope to be real soon—they’ll have all the theory and knowledge behind what they’re going to begin to practice hands-on in the classroom.

Lee Doubleday: Okay, Brent, this is Lee. I just wanted to ask you, are you still open for tours or is that something that students can do virtually?

Brent: Yep. So, Lee, the last day before the governor of Indiana issued the shelter-in-place executive order, one of our admissions representatives, Kyle Spencer, put together a five-minute virtual tour of the facility. So, while our building is closed right now, we do have a virtual tour that shows students all the tools and equipment that are in the classroom, the different departments in the classroom. Additionally, our admissions team—they are very knowledgeable about the school and the programs and the opportunities for our graduates. So, they can still convey to anyone that’s interested the benefits of the education we offer.

Lee: Okay, great. So, as I understand it, you’re currently teaching online. You’re hopefully opening soon. Any student who’s interested in learning more about your campus can take a tour virtually, in the meantime, until those campuses reopen. But can I still enroll for a future class? Can you tell me a little bit more about that process? Should I still be contacting admissions, maybe off of the website? How would I go about scheduling time with an admissions representative, and can I still enroll for a future class?

Brent: Absolutely, Bob—or Lee asked that question. We are still enrolling for our current classes. Our school really is built to meet the immediate needs of our students that don’t want to wait for the traditional fall semester of classes, people that want to get started with their education right now. So, we start classes more frequently. In fact, we have a class that starts on Monday.

So we are still enrolling for people that want to get their careers started. To do that, the fastest way to get information is either to call the campus directly—while we’re all working remote, we are still answering the phones; that phone number is (317) 632-5553 to speak to the admissions department—or go online to the school website (it’s lincolntech.edu) and you can start a live chat through the website.

Lee: That’s fantastic. And so what I think I hear you saying is that you’re teaching online, you have a virtual tour, and you can still enroll for a future class. Now, let’s say that the campus is still closed due to the virus. What will happen and will that class start online?

Brent: Yep. So we have transitioned the programs to the distance ed format. And really, the initial classes—the introductory classes—are very conducive to that online learning for all of our programs. We have a learning management software called Canvas that we provide to the student as a part of their program so they can get all of their lectures, watch the videos, again, gain all of the knowledge.

So, we’re still starting classes and they can still begin to gain all that knowledge and prepare for their future and do it remote. Again, we are working every day on a plan to reopen the campus. We hope that happens real soon. And when it does, then we will transition back into—probably early stages, some combination of online learning with hands-on for the lab work, until the time is safe for us to go fully back to a ground campus operation.

Lee: Okay, and one last question before I turn everything back over to Bob, which is: Is all of your student services—i.e., admissions, financial aid, career services—is all of that still available for current students?

Brent: Absolutely. Every department is still operating, still functioning. We are here to help our students and prospective students. The best way for prospective students to get information, again, is to call that campus line: (317) 632-5553. Ask to speak to whichever department that you’d like to speak to, and your call will be transferred to that appropriate staff member.

Bob: We’re talking to Brent Jenkins, campus president, Lincoln Tech in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Brent, here are my takeaways from today’s call. My first takeaway is Lincoln Tech in Indianapolis is open for business and is assisting current students. Although it may be a dramatically modified version, you’re still providing education and training to those existing students.

My second takeaway is that Lincoln Tech in Indianapolis is enrolling new students, and, in fact, you’ve got a start coming up. And potential students that are interested in your campus can go to the Lincoln Tech website or might be able to contact you directly. That’s my final point, which is—if you wouldn’t mind—if any interested parties that listen to this presentation had questions (parents, potential students, guidance counselor, whatever), why don’t you just very quickly restate your contact information for your particular campus, please?

Brent: Sure, if you go to lincolntech.edu, at the top of that page you select Indianapolis campus. There’s the opportunity there to chat live with a representative. The phone numbers are there to contact us. There’s a “contact me” form; you could do that. So, the website is a really quick way to get some information. And then, of course, that phone number, which is (317) 632-5553.

Bob: And if they want to contact you, what’s your email, Brent, if you don’t mind?

Brent: Yep, sure. My direct email is BrentJenkins@lincontech.edu.

Bob: We’ve been talking to Brent Jenkins, campus president, Lincoln Tech – Indianapolis, Indiana. We want to thank him today for taking time out of his schedule to join us. We also want to thank listeners to our podcast for taking time out of their very hectic schedules to listen to today’s episode of Imagine America Radio.

On behalf of my colleague, Lee Doubleday, and myself, please be safe, and we will be talking again very soon. Thank you and goodbye.