Cover Story

University of Saskatchewan Colleges

Shine Through the COVID-19 Pandemic

By Véronique Loewen

The University of Saskatchewan (USask) counts over 25,700 students and 11,000 staff and faculty – that’s nearly 13.5% of the population of Saskatoon studying or working in one location. When the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, it meant that by their sheer number, this segment of the city became top of mind for many.

There was the realization that many students found themselves quickly out of work and in precarious situations as businesses were forced to shutdown. Similarly, international students’ challenges came to the forefront, as they had to navigate living arrangements when campus dorms closed and also their return to their home countries quickly before borders closed. And USask staff and faculty became keenly aware that the usual pace of change and the ways in which student services were administered and courses and research opportunities were delivered had to change drastically very quickly. These were some of the challenges faced by the colleges of Arts and Science, Agriculture and Bioresources, Engineering and the Edwards School of Business.

College of Agriculture and Bioresources

Angela Bedard-Haughn, Dean of the College of Agriculture and Bioresources and a professor in the Department of Soil Sciences recalls how she and her colleagues had to quickly turn their attention to helping students get through the end of the semester once the colleges’ physical doors were shut.

“The college closed on Friday and by the following Thursday, we were back in business, essentially teaching online within days of vacating the campus. We had to adapt quickly.”

The hands-on training provided by the college was a lot tougher to replicate virtually, for both teaching and research. “Our researchers had to review all the field and lab protocols to see what we could keep, needed to change, or could no longer do. Technicians and graduate students prepared for the field season at home. They adapted workflows. They learned to collaborate differently, outside of the lab environment. Plants don’t wait to grow, so we had to improvise fast,” continues the Dean. In addition to the difficulties in maintaining the experiential side of the students’ learning, Bedard-Haughn highlights that it became quickly apparent that students were missing the opportunity to engage with their peers, staff and faculty. In response, they developed the “Virtual Coffee Row” – an online meeting room – to provide the opportunity for casual interactions. “It was important to take care of people because these conversations were no longer happening organically at the coffee station or in the hallways. We needed to make sure they would not lose their sense of community, and that they could support each other,” she says.

Outside of the college, the pandemic has put a spotlight on the pinch points and some of the issues related to food security in Canada and abroad. For Bedard-Haughn and her colleagues, it has further demonstrated the importance of research that engages deliberately with industry. “The pandemic has elevated the focus on food production and distribution systems and their challenges, which are areas that we are constantly working on. This is part of the essential value our college provides society as we cooperate with industry and serve the broader community. I am proud of everyone within the college – faculty, staff and students – we have demonstrated our resilience and our ability to adapt to a changing environment, be it a pandemic or changing climate,” concludes Bedard-Haughn.

www.agbio.usask.ca

College of Arts and Science

At the largest college on campus - 9,000 students, 300 faculty and 200 staff – Peta Bonham-Smith, Dean of Arts and Science and a member of the faculty in the biology department and her team ensured students had the right equipment at home to be able to continue learning and take exams.

“Many students use on-campus computers to do their work. This was no longer an option for them, so we had to find equipment to help them out. And for many students and staff who went back to their rural or northern communities internet speed could also be an issue. We had to make allowances for that,” states Bonham-Smith.

Other technological concerns emerged. In first-year biology there are about 500 students; would allowing them to all take online courses and exams all at once crash the system? To address bandwidth worries, faculty made most of the courses asynchronous – meaning that students don’t have to all log in at the same time but rather can view the class whenever they want. “Luckily, we found out that the system was more robust than we had originally thought and with feedback from students that they were missing the direct interaction with their instructors, we decided to mix synchronous with asynchronous teaching for as many classes as we could. We are learning as we go,” explains the Dean.

Getting graduate students back on campus so they could complete their research, write and present their thesis, meant finding ways to provide them with access to the buildings, while following all pandemic protocols. “We selected indispensable labs and equipment and established rotations depending on the size of the lab to provide the necessary physical distance to a small number of students. For the arts, we were able to acquire “singing masks” and gather students in small groups in large spaces so they could still practice and perform live to be able to graduate,” says Bonham-Smith.

Many of the undergraduate hands-on lab work was video recorded so students could see the manipulations and then receive datasets to perform their own analysis. Others were able to connect into the lab remotely, as described by the Dean: “Astronomy students can operate a telescope located off campus from their home and take pictures of the skies, geography students can log-into on campus computers to access Geographic Information System software, and biology students can use electronic kits and their own computers at home to determine their own heart activity and perform other analyses. Once we focused on the learning outcomes rather than just on the manual aspects of labs, we were able to design video and remote labs so students could progress in their learning even if they weren’t the ones performing some of the manipulations. And we will hopefully be able to offer “bootcamps” to allow students to catch-up on some of the hands-on learning when we can come back on campus.”

With the pandemic still a concern, college faculty and staff are already thinking about the future. “One of the benefits of offering courses remotely is that there are few classroom size restrictions. In some graduate classes we have gone from 8 students to 80 students enrolled now from all other the world. We need to assess which classes are best served online and those that truly benefit from an in-person presence. We’re also thinking about different work arrangements, with some staff and faculty working from home more often. It might mean shared on campus office spaces. These are some of the conversations we’re having within our team and also with other USask colleges and Canadian universities,” says Bonham-Smith.

www.artsandscience.usask.ca

Image: Dean Peta Bonham (supplied)

College of Engineering

For Suzanne Kresta, Dean of the College of Engineering, this is the most dramatic pivot she has ever been part of in the academic world.

“The university is a very structure and process-oriented environment – change usually takes time. But one of the advantages of academia is that nothing can get between professors and their students, not even a pandemic. They have a passion and commitment to teach students who want to learn,” she says.

Like other colleges on campus, committed to upholding the standard of learning in a digital environment, the college of engineering recorded lectures and labs and offered opportunities for students to log in remotely and use lab equipment from home. They offered an “avatar” learning model, whereby students directed the work of a technician or instructor streaming live from the lab. In the winter semester, certain students were allowed back into the labs to build the project prototypes required to fulfill class requirements, of course following all COVID-19 protocols.

“Every college has its own challenges, but it will be exciting when we can get everyone back on campus. However, there have been many silver linings, such us building a stronger bond the university and the business community,” states Kresta. Through the pandemic, community partners are honouring co-op placements for the college’s students and also providing in-kind and cash support for students who suddenly found themselves in vulnerable situations.

Kresta describes one of her proudest moments during this pandemic as an opportunity for academia and industry to share their energy and passion for the greater good. She received a call in March 2020 from Jim Boire, USask mechanical engineering graduate and the founder and president of Saskatoon-based RMD Engineering. “He wanted to develop a made-in Saskatchewan ventilator to address the looming shortage. He wanted to draw on our expertise and partner with us on this project. We didn’t hesitate; we immediately shared specialized equipment and helped Jim partner with our co-op office to add students to his team. Some of our recent grads were part of the RMD team that put together the prototype that was approved by regulators in December 2020, with the first units delivered to Saskatchewan hospitals in January. We get a whole lot more done when we work together.”

www.engineering.usask.ca

Edwards School of Business

At the Edwards School of Business, Dean Keith Willoughby and his team have been trying to live by Winston Churchill’s famous line “never let a good crisis go to waste”.

The pandemic has allowed them to quickly deploy over 250 classes and labs online. Continued investments in course development, remote teaching technologies, and software have eased the transition. For example, Gordon Rawlinson’s sponsorship of a new trading and finance room featuring 16 Bloomberg terminals, ensured finance students have been able to continue their studies through access to critical software and data by logging in remotely.

Edwards was one of the first business schools in Canada to partner with Mitacs on the Business Strategy Internship program to support local employers in enhancing their business capacity during COVID-19. The partnership ensures students are receiving realworld experience in a global economy dramatically affected by the ongoing pandemic, while assisting businesses in scaling up their operations in response to the new economic realities. Edwards has also been able to increase and enhance its executive education offerings to meet the heightened demand of industry to re-skill, upgrade and train many of their employees. The shift to online delivery has been received positively, with many individuals enjoying the flexibility, adaptations, and access to government subsidies. “After going through the initial bumps and bruises associated with learning different platforms and teaching methods, we are using the pandemic to transition to and fine tune more efficient and effective course delivery and engage further with the business community,” states Willoughby.

For the Dean, a key lesson of the past year has been the value of every single person within Edwards and the university. “Staff members at every level, faculty, and the eminently capable IT staff who quickly became highly visible and sought after – it takes hundreds of individuals to run this school every day, it has never been clearer that all of their contributions are consequential,” says the Dean. “Together, by providing innovative education opportunities, we all help Edwards’ students stay ahead of the curve in their learning and for their future in business,” he concludes.

www.edwards.usask.ca

Customer Experience Always Wins

by Mouneeb Shahid, CEO of 2Web.ca

Businesses of all sizes are fighting for one thing; CUSTOMERS. Some companies try to wow prospects by offering better deals on products, giving discounts, and other promotions to make a sale. Reducing prices, however, is not a viable long-term strategy. The impact of providing a discount can make the customer experience more transactional rather than memorable, further commoditizing your products and services. The best way to win over customers and getting them hooked on your brand is by offering them an experience they cannot forget.

Why Customer Experience?

In a nutshell, customer experience is what a customer's perception is of your brand based on their interactions. It is the "feeling" that they get when they engage with your content, your service, your product and any message you put out there.

Customer experience is paramount to your organization's success because it can impact your customers' lifetime value (LTV). Offering a high-quality product or service that does what it is supposed to do is not the benchmark for a great customer experience. You can meet customer expectations by providing them with what they want, but you can easily exceed their expectations by how you deliver. If a business wants to WOW their customers, there needs to be a jaw-dropping moment in the customer journey that makes your brand memorable.

The Rise of Customer Expectations

In an ever-increasing competitive marketplace, another major challenge that organizations face is the rise in customer expectations. As a result, businesses need to develop newer and better strategies to get more prospects to convert to customers. By focusing on customer experience, not only does it bring a viable long-term growth strategy, it encourages positive endorsements and has an impact on social marketing. You cannot undervalue your customers' social circle if you aim to earn repeat business.

Businesses nowadays cannot ignore customer service since having faithful customers has immense advantages. Unhappy customers will stop buying from a brand that offers them a poor experience, even if the transaction was minimal.

Accenture's study showed that 54% of customers started engaging with a rival business after receiving a less favourable experience from the initial transaction. Hence, organizations today have to give more attention to improving their customer experience strategy if they do not want to lose their customers to other competitor brands.

For many businesses, having a customer experience strategy is an afterthought when it should be at the forefront as it is a requirement to retain their customers. You don't need to fret if you have no idea where to begin, as almost every business faces this challenge, especially during the startup and growth phase. It doesn't end there either. Consider the obsession that Amazon has with customer experience. By making every decision revolve around customer experience, Amazon continues to win the retail battle.

The success of Amazon is proof that customer experience always wins.

Where to Begin?

Start by getting a deep understanding of your customer. You can start by building a customer profile (or buyer persona) and mapping out the customer journey using measurable key performance indicators. There are numerous platforms and systems you can utilize to track customer behaviour effectively across the digital landscape. We can then understand, "what makes your customers tick?" providing you with the outcome your customer experience strategy needs to deliver.

For example, when we approach a website redesign project, our goal is to design an experience for the target audience. Therefore, we start by evaluating the current website analytics, usually available for free through Google Analytics. We also install some advanced screen recording tools such as Lucky Orange and utilize A/B testing tools such as Unbounce. To evaluate whether the approach we are taking will work, we use an Artificial Intelligence analysis that delivers predictive user behaviour data before completing the design process.

The analysis not only saves us time but significantly enhances our ability to ensure the end result meets expectations. To demonstrate in real-time, we can also recruit people as part of a focus group from UserTesting to gather results from a smaller audience before the project goes live.

The above example primarily relates to digital experiences, but it is essential to make every customer interaction count, online or offline. To learn how we can help enhance your customer experience, visit 2Web.ca

TotaIIy LocaIIy

The Chamber and Saskatoon Media Group have recently partnered to provide radio exposure to Chamber members to get Saskatoon shopping, buying and eating Totally Locally. Supporting local means that your hard earned money stays within our community and will go towards local economic stimulus including the support of the local workforce. Your local retailers are diverse and here to serve you. Be sure to check out the featured businesses below who have been apart of the Totally Locally radio campaign.

For more information contact Pam Kenny (306) 664-0704 membersupport@saskatoonchamber.com