WKTV Staff
kelly@wktv.org
As the world grapples with the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, Ferris State University stakeholders quickly collaborated to create a plan to keep campus safe and in operation after the state-wide stay at home order.
The new documentary film from regional Emmy® Award winning filmmaker Nick Kuiper, “A New Normal,” features nearly 50 interviews with students, faculty, staff, and administrators as they share their experience during the pandemic. The film captures the stress of learning during a pandemic, the collaboration necessary to keep campus running, the creative problem solving necessary to keep stakeholders safe, and the challenges involved with quickly shifting classes online. A New Normal offers a roadmap of how one university utilized feedback from all their members to safely stay open.
One such story focuses on the Ferris Plastics program’s collaboration with Operation Face Shield. While campus shifted to online education, staff and faculty in the plastics program helped develop a mold for mass production of face shields and eventually creating over 40,000 face shields that were sent out across the globe.
Imagine being an excited student ready to embark on your first study abroad trip to Peru, when suddenly, in the middle of your excursion, the Peruvian government initiates a mandatory lockdown. A New Normal showcases the quick thinking of Ferris faculty as they rush to evacuate their students before being stuck in the country indefinitely.
Also hear from students and faculty in Biotechnology, as they quickly implement revolutionary wastewater testing technology to narrow in on COVID-19 clusters and stop outbreaks before it can spread around campus.
“A New Normal” will air on WKTV Channel 25 Oct. 13 at 2:30 p.m. and again on Oct. 14 at 10 :30 p.m. and Oct. 15 at noon.
