Signs of Life: Taylorsville Redwood Campus

Parts of Salt Lake Community College are slowly beginning to reopen during the COVID-19 pandemic, ushering in a "new normal" in a community that normally thrives on unfettered access to the environment and resources that make SLCC one of the top community colleges in the nation. Signs of Life is a series that shines a light on stops along the long road back to normal operations.

Nathan Thomas

Which is pretty cool. You hear that phrase every few minutes or so as Nathan Thomas teaches his Principles of Cardio class. (Insert new fact about the human body), “Which is pretty cool,” he tacks on.

 

And he really does think those things are cool. If there is a twinkle to be had in a teacher’s eye that comes with enthusiasm for one’s subject, Nathan has it. “I absolutely love being back in the classroom,” Nathan beams on a sunny summer day at Salt Lake Community College’s Taylorsville Redwood Campus. Like his colleagues around the country, the current pandemic derailed in-person labs that could not be moved to remote learning. A loosening of restrictions in Utah gave Nathan the green light to return.

 

In a workout room with wood floors and mirrored walls, the metal on Nathan’s bicycle cleats echoes as he bounces from bike to bike to help seven students with complicated math equations related to things like lactate threshold curve and physiology as they figure out how to reach their fat-burning zones. Blue tape on the floor positions each stationary bike 10 feet from each other. Two buckets of disinfectant wipes help keep equipment clean. Nathan’s mask goes up after asking students, “Am I okay to come over into your space?”

 

Nathan says he’s following Utah Department of Health guidelines – and then some. The six-foot social distance rule is stretched to 10 because people are exercising, he adds. “There is stuff like this that is really hard to deliver online in a remote way,” Nathan says. “If we don’t have a hands-on approach to this, I don’t know how competent they will be able to deliver this knowledge in the industry. We need this hands-on piece for our majors to be able to successfully integrate and progress through our program.”

Tawny Cruz

One of those majors is Tawny Cruz, 30, a West Jordan mother of children ages eight and two who has searched for the right academic fit at SLCC since graduating from high school. Now she is in SLCC’s Fit Tech program, a two-year program that she laments is stretching into three for her. When she’s finally done at SLCC, she’ll be certified by the American College of Sports Medicine with sights set on going for her bachelor’s degree in exercise science. “I was a bartender for seven years,” she says. “I was tired of my job. I realized I didn’t want to be a bartender the rest of my life.”

 

With help from Mom researching programs on SLCC’s website, Tawny decided she wanted to combine her interests in fitness and its applications in the lives of recovering addicts. Having a father who has been an alcoholic her whole life influenced her career decision. When the pandemic hit in the spring, she saw her academic timeline at SLCC stretching into spring, 2021. That’s why Nathan’s class over the summer is so important to her. “I didn’t want to keep putting it off and prolonging it,” she says about her education. “Eventually, I want to be able to focus on just my kids and work. So, it’s important to keep going.”