BGU PRESIDENT'S REPORT 2021

OUR NEXT FIFTY

17

TEACHING TECHNOLOGIES In March 2020, we switched to online teaching with remarkably few glitches. Over the summer, we equipped 90 classrooms for hybrid teaching – with cutting-edge audiovisual equipment that tracks lecturers and integrates screen sharing and multiple other advanced teaching technologies. Government mandated restrictions meant that for most of the current academic year, the technology is being applied to online teaching. Student surveys noted a leap in the quality of remote teaching thanks to this new technology. Students returned to campus and we finally began hybrid teaching after the Passover break, at the beginning of April. The University set up computer centers in dorms and provided laptops to needy students. NetSticks (USB modems) that boost internet connectivity were distributed to students with inadequate internet access.

 Prof. Lior Fink of the Dept. of Industrial Engineering & Management teaches remotely from an empty classroom newly equipped for hybrid teaching.  Hundreds of individual workstations were set up indoors and outdoors throughout campus, so students who need to can study on campus while maintaining social distancing.

COMMUNITY OUTREACH The BGU spirit found expression in a range of outreach activities during this year of extraordinary need in our neighboring communities. Here are just a few notable examples: Students from the Lillian and Larry Goodman Open Apartments Program established an Elderly Patrol to maintain contact with lonely elderly in their neighborhoods and help deliver their groceries, medications and more. They also enlisted additional students and neighbors to cook and deliver hot meals. In the Refrigerator Initiative , led by May Avital, a student in the Keren Moshe Leadership Training Program , local businesses contribute excess food products to an open and free community refrigerator.