MARCH 2020
It is March 4th, 2020. The large lecture hall on the Cergy campus is full. The school’s renowned student association Les Mardis de l’ESSEC is welcoming François Hollande, former French President. This would be one of the last big events held on campus for quite some time ...
Four campuses on lockdown
A few days later, our campuses in Europe, Africa and Asia successively shut down, following measures taken by the respective authorities to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
ESSEC immediately took steps to maintain its activities and operations, by switching all of our courses to distance learning as mandated by health authorities in Europe, Africa and Asia. On March 13th, a record 12-hour-long Executive Committee meeting was held, bringing together the school’s management team to coordinate actions on all campuses and prepare the transition to 100% distance learning.
Our staff already had extensive experience in this type of teaching model. In recent years, ESSEC had already produced more than 40 MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and SPOCs (Small Private Online Courses) thanks to its professors, teaching engineers and the infrastructure available on campus.
This know-how was strengthened in 2019 with the creation of ESSEC's fifth campus, our Augmented Digital Campus, and the Deck, ESSEC’s virtual classroom.
The challenge, then, was to develop these good practices on a much larger scale. Moreover, a dedicated crisis unit was also set up to implement health recommendations and coordinate these issues across the ESSEC Group as a whole, as well as to provide campuses with health equipment.
A cohesive community
The entire ESSEC community – from students to alumni, through participants and young ESSEC entrepreneurs – came together like never before to adapt its operations, to overcome difficulties or to provide help during the first lock-down. Some chose to get involved with associations, others to raise funds or find equipment for caregivers.
Students also rose to the challenge, and did everything they could to maintain some form of social connection and provide activities during lockdown. Our student associations played a decisive role in breaking the monotony and isolation.
Article released on May 5th, 2020
“We just needed to feel we were helping”
Paul Vanthuyne and Paul Vendroux are both students of the ESSEC Global BBA, and they chose to do their part in the fight against Covid-19 by volunteering with the Red Cross in Pontoise. An enriching and intense month-long experience.
“We didn’t feel what we were doing was something special. It’s simply that we couldn’t stay at home and do nothing, without getting involved.” Paul Vendroux, 20, and Paul Vanthuyne, 19, are both enrolled in the ESSEC Global BBA. At noon on March 17th, like everyone else in France, they found themselves in lockdown. The two friends quickly decided to get involved. “The ESSEC administration asked us to stay home. Then they suggested that we help, each in our own way. We wanted to do our part”, explains Paul Vanthuyne. “My father and my brother caught COVID-19,” adds Paul Vendroux. “I couldn’t go home, and immediately I felt I had to find a way to help.”
The two friends called Cergy town hall, which quickly referred them to the town of Pontoise. A special Covid diagnostic center had opened on 31 March in Pontoise, run jointly by a group of doctors, the city of Pontoise and the Red Cross. The two Pauls started the application process, and as of April 1, they joined as volunteers. From 9am to 7pm, six days a week, they actively contributed to the life of the center. The friends explained: “We had two main tasks. First, to help manage the hotline that had been set up to relieve the pressure on the general medicine lines and on EMT services and to help manage the logistical aspects of the consultation center. We collected all relevant information from patients over the phone, to help doctors in their decision-making on site. The second task was managing the stocks of materials, such as masks or gowns, and keeping a very detailed inventory.”
“We were really thrown into the reality of the crisis.”
The first two weeks of April were very intense, because the epidemic was at its height in the Val d'Oise department. The two students were inundated with calls, explaining that “At the peak of the crisis, we could receive up to 160 calls per day. With the help of the doctors and volunteers onsite, we built a response tree. We were really thrown into the reality of the crisis, with some very complex cases. But it was always the doctor who made the final decision.” The two volunteers kept a record of all interactions, with due respect for medical confidentiality, to ensure patient follow-up.
To face up to the challenge of the pandemic, the whole team at the center pulled together. The local community and businesses also showed their support “We really felt valued by the team. We received many donations of equipment. The people of Pontoise came spontaneously to give us masks. The local supermarket provided us with meals. One evening, a pizza maker brought us about 20 pizzas. You could just feel the support, the solidarity.” In the final days of their placement, the two friends decided to go even further in their commitment, by participating in the delivery of food vouchers in a local Roma camp.
“I would do it again in a heartbeat"
Thanks to the overall decline in the number of cases, the diagnostic center closed after April 25th. “We got a lot out of this experience," Paul Vendroux said enthusiastically. “We saw the reality of it. If it came to it, I’d do it again in a heartbeat. The Red Cross is so much more than what we imagine. We were blown away by the commitment of those who work in these organizations on a daily basis.” A view shared by Paul Vanthuyne: “In the future, I definitely want to invest more of my free time in giving back to others, towards the greater good.” The students will be able to get credit for this experience, as part of their Field Experience, a compulsory four-week internship in the social or health field. They expressed how glad they were “to get a taste of both areas, and we’ll carry with us for the rest of our lives what Louis, the president of the Red Cross of the Portes du Vexin area, said to us: “We can always use what you have to offer.”
Article released on April 27th, 2020
Digital Campus Life Project : ESSEC BDE Malibu keeps in touch
After the school’s pedagogical innovation during the lockdown, it is the ESSEC students' turn to innovate: with the “Digital Campus Life Project”, the BDE Malibu enables students to reactivate associative life.
What is the Digital Campus Life Project about?
The Digital Campus Life Project is a novel and non-profit initiative of BDE Malibu association to help students have a digital student life from home. As most of us are in isolation, we have boredom lurking over us and we thought wouldn’t this be the perfect time for students to acquire new skills because we have more free time on our hands. ESSEC students are multi-talented and wouldn’t that be the best way to learn. This project aims to empower students where they can showcase their mastered skills while keeping them busy. This project aims to reignite the association life, especially as most association projects for Term3 were cancelled.
What are the main motivations for this project ?
The quarantine/confinement is a very boring period and we thought to ourselves wouldn't it be the best time to develop skills. As you know, most online courses are paid and as we students are on a limited budget, wouldn’t it be amazing to learn skills for free from other ESSEC students, as ESSEC community consists of multi-talented individuals. In this way, a student will learn new skills while another student will be able to showcase his or her skills and hence feel as a full member of the ESSEC community.
Who is it aimed at?
The project was initially aimed at all students, from all programs (GBBA, MSc in management, MS and IHMI) but we decided to open it to all ESSEC staff as well.
What kind of content or services are you planning to offer?
As it is a collaborative project, the students ideate and share their skills. We proposed students to teach each other languages, softwares, cooking, and coding skills. We have ESSEC- Moi l’Histoire delivering a lecture on ‘Introduction à l'histoire du genre’, ESSEC RMX conducting ‘DJing Course by Paul’ and a ‘Rubik Cube Solving Workshop’ by Indian National Record Holder Hari Anirudh Swaminathan. The ESSEC Bureau des Arts are planning to organise an art conference for students with the Louvre Museum.
A dynamic and active faculty
Professors and lecturers had to adapt their teaching methodology to distance learning, whether partial or total. How do you teach without being physically present? Which tools should you use and how do you master them? How do you keep your audience’s attention? All these questions had to be answered in record time.
Our professors had to rethink their way of teaching to ensure the best experience for an audience who could not be physically present. Both our K-Lab teams and our Innovation teams – with all their respective experience and expertise and who had already been guiding the ESSEC community in the ongoing digitalization of its pedagogical practices – worked with the Dean’s office to set up a comprehensive website to support our professors and lecturers. We also held a number of information meetings and set up several communication channels to exchange good practices and answer their questions.
Article released on April 8, 2020
“Digitalisation is the catalyst for reinventing ourselves!”
Florence Cavelius – a Professor of the Accounting and Management Control Department and Academic Director of the Executive Education MGO (Management & Organizational Management) – has been working on flipped classroom teaching since 2013, and since the mandatory shutdown of the ESSEC campuses, she has had to deal with 100% distance learning. We interviewed her about this unprecedented experience, which she says has led her to reinvent herself.
What has this changed for you in your everyday life?
As a teacher, you have to anticipate and prepare your teaching sessions much more ahead of time than for a classroom setting. You have to explain clearly to students how the course or day is going to be structured. You also have to review the syllabus in depth, especially if the course has not been designed on reverse pedagogy, and to think carefully about how to pace the sequences, alternating activities. You cannot simply give a two-and-a-half-hour lecture relying on top-down teaching alone. In front of a screen, you are much more static, you cannot make eye contact with the participants or students, and there’s the inexorable risk of losing your audience. You have to create momentum.
As a Program Director, this meant reviewing all of our processes and a great deal of discussion. You have to reassure participants, the teachers and lecturers; you also have to define new assessment methods and develop the courses. This involved a significant amount of work with the program coordinators to ensure that everything was in place.
How do you structure your sessions now?
I try to divide up each session into thematic sequences of no more than 20 minutes, which I alternate with activities, such as individual exercises, readings, plenary testimonials or group work. With Zoom we can organize the students or participants into sub-groups of four or five people. As a facilitator, you can go from room to room to discuss with each individual group, before asking them to report back to the plenary. This is almost more efficient than in-person teaching, where we do not always have the appropriate facilities for such an experiential pedagogical approach.
Remote group work also requires us to adapt the questions included in the cases, ensuring everyone has a role or a mission, so as to make for a livelier debriefing session, where each group can participate. In a face-to-face setting, plenary discussion is easier.
Another example: I have set up small quizzes. I give a 20-minute lecture, then I ask them to answer a pre-prepared multiple-choice quiz on the course website. I can share the statistics of the answers in real time, to see which notions have been understood and which have not, so any necessary further explanations can be made. This is not a kind of exercise that I used with face-to-face teaching. Little quizzes like this are not as important in a classroom setting because you can easily see if your audience is following. However, we could imagine using such tools more systematically. Digital technology is pushing us to reinvent ourselves!
How are students in pre-experience programs and Executive Education participants adapting?
Depending on the audience, there are different challenges to overcome. Students are very comfortable with digital technology, but they sometimes have a harder time staying focused. Conversely, Executive Education participants may struggle more to come to grips with digital tools, but they can stay focused longer. However, this can’t be easy given that they often face the additional challenge of having to manage their family in lockdown. That is why we have to support them all the more. Overall, they are all very happy that we are able to maintain the courses and their training.
Agile response from our support services
Over 600 ESSEC staff members across our four campuses had to adapt very quickly to ensure continuity of our services, despite a very complex situation.
For those departments where working from home was not possible, such as the mail room, logistics, maintenance and security, adjustments were made in order to ensure the safety of their personnel on a daily basis. This has been the school’s priority since the beginning of the pandemic: ensuring the safety of the entire ESSEC community, while at the same time ensuring the school would still be able to play its role in training the leaders of tomorrow.
Thanks to the school’s digital culture, those who could work remotely were able to set up processes for doing so very quickly, as recommended by local health authorities, while at the same time maintaining a connection with our students and Executive Education participants.
HR measures to promote well-being were put in place, and a teleworking charter was introduced to preserve our staff’s right to disconnect and thereby ensure an adequate work-life balance.
In order to foster the cohesiveness of the community, every week from March 27th Vincenzo Vinzi, ESSEC's Dean and President, recorded a video in both French and English from his home. These videos were shared with the entire community every Friday. The goal of these weekly videos was to stay in touch, as a way of expressing our raison d'être as an institution of higher education and research.
“In March 2020, we had 600 students out on internships, 50% of whom abroad.”
Claire Tagand Battard, Director of Career Services at ESSEC, and her 26 employees have embraced the digital challenge to continue to support students and enable them to prepare for their future professional careers, through personalized support. For all of ESSEC's administrative services, and despite the fact that the majority of the ESSEC community is unable to visit the campuses, the priority has been to maintain a connection with the school’s students and participants.
How did you experience the beginning of the crisis in mid-March 2020?
We had a hunch early on how things might play out. We had prepared the Career Services team, ensuring they had all the computer equipment they needed, to be ready for any situation. Then, when we switched to working remotely, literally from one day to the next, we immediately went into crisis management mode to deal with very specific problems. For instance, we had 600 students out on internships, 50% of whom were abroad. We had to contact each of them very quickly, inquire about their situation, see what we could do for them, how we could help, and if necessary, put them in touch with local authorities to coordinate their repatriation. We approached each of them individually, mobilizing all the school’s partners, the student services, and ESSEC Alumni.
What has this changed for you in your everyday activities?
The Career Services is made up of three divisions: the Career Support Division, which helps students prepare their professional project and implement it; the Experiential Division, which manages their professional experiences; and the Recruitment Events Division, which facilitates the connection between students and companies. Each of these divisions coordinates activities as well as in-person interviews, meetings and events with students. So, we had to find ways to go virtual as quickly as possible! For instance, we organized a career module for Global BBA students shortly after lock-down. In a few days, we reorganized everything to make this event possible in a virtual format, via video broadcasting. The GoingPro experience, which, each year, is the opportunity for experienced managers to invite ESSEC students to shadow them in their daily work for four days, also had to be made compatible with a digital format.
It has required us adapting over and over again, proposing new formats and constant innovation. On the positive side, this has enabled us to continue to improve our services and has given us new ideas for the future. These difficult times have brought to light how committed our teams are. I am in awe of the adaptability, solidarity and genuine commitment they have demonstrated.
There is a constant concern regarding employment for the generations who are preparing to enter the labor market in such a complicated context. How can we continue to nurture the links between companies and students?
To enable students and companies to exchange with each other we have used mainly virtual platforms. Ultimately, we were able to organize as many, if not more, events than we would in normal circumstances. What’s more we have seen absolutely no decrease in motivation on the part of students, quite the contrary! We have seen a 50% increase in the number of students taking part in corporate events, presentations by experts, alumni and ambassadors. In January 2021, we responded to 440 student requests for individual interviews for some kind of support, compared to 216 in January 2020. This shows that in this context, they themselves are more than ever aware of the need for them to be well prepared for market opportunities.
JUNE 2020
In late spring and early summer, our campuses were gradually able to reopen, as was the case, for example, for the Executive Education campus at La Défense. In anticipation of this, the logistics teams worked tirelessly to transform the premises, putting in place all the health measures requested by the local authorities: provision of hand sanitizer, signage, social distancing measures, thermometers, etc.
Preparing for the 2020 academic year
Students in undergraduate programs, however, finished their academic year in distance learning. The campuses, usually bustling at that time of the year with admission exams and final exams, unfortunately remained empty. ESSEC took advantage of this downtime to prepare for the start of the 2020/2021 academic year, in order to create the conditions for students being able to return to campus.
The picture on the right shows a team disinfecting the premises of the Singapore campus.
We invested over EUR 2.5 million to equip all classrooms with video-conferencing equipment over the summer. This extraordinary feat meant that the school was fully prepared to offer an innovative teaching format for the new school year: the dual teaching system. This hybrid format combines face-to-face and distance learning, thereby reducing the number of students and participants present on campus, and making it possible to implement the social distancing measures.
SEPTEMBER 2020
After several months of distance learning, students were finally able to return to campus in Cergy, Rabat and Singapore. Thanks to the implementation of strict health protocols, including systematic temperature monitoring of all individuals entering the campus, we were able to welcome our students back. We also set up a three-person strong Covid Unit within the administration on the Cergy campus. This unit responds to requests and enquiries from students and staff members, and is in charge of managing isolation and contact tracing. It works closely with the Val d'Oise regional health agency (ARS). On the other smaller campuses, appointed Covid Reference Persons manage the situation on a daily basis.
A colossal logistical challenge
The 2020/2021 academic took off in a completely unprecedented context: cohorts had to operate in half-groups, with one half attending classes on site, the other online. The program, logistics, and pedagogical teams pulled out all the stops to ensure the quality of the ESSEC experience in such a constrained environment.
Article released on September 15th, 2020
2020/2021 academic year: ESSEC re-affirms its pedagogical excellence with its “Dual Teaching” scheme
In order to guarantee maintaining the quality of the educational experience for students and participants despite the ongoing health crisis, ESSEC Business School has chosen a hybrid teaching solution for this 2020/2021 academic year, called “Dual Teaching”. ESSEC has invested several million euros in its various campuses to enable students to alternate between classroom and distance learning.
From the end of August forpre-experience programs and from June for Executive Education, ESSEC Business School students and participants have been able to return to the school’s various campuses. This 2020 academic year is unique: everything has been redesigned to accommodate our public, while at the same time scrupulously respecting health recommendations. “The students want to come back to the campus and we are happy to be able to see them again,” Félix Papier, Deputy Director in charge of the Master in Management and pre-experience programs, explained. He added, “We have invested a lot of energy in adapting ESSEC to the current health situation. Our first priority is to protect the health of all members of the ESSEC community. “
Multiple measures, which are outlined in this article, have been put in place to ensure the safety of all. Of these, the physical distancing guidelines have obliged us to rethink the educational experience. "The pre-experience programs wanted a high-quality experience for their students while preserving the health of all,” explains Benjamin Six, Director of Innovation and User Experience at ESSEC, adding: “We therefore adopted this ‘Dual’ formula, investing heavily in quality equipment.” On the Cergy campus alone, more than EUR 2 million have been invested.
On the Cergy and Singapore campuses, for example, all classrooms are now equipped for video conferencing. This means a small number of students can attend classes in person, while the rest attend online. Classes are broadcast via Zoom, and students can still interact via the screens and microphones in the room. Students take turns attending the campus in person or attending online classes.
With its experience in pedagogical innovation, ESSEC has developed significant expertise in these new teaching methods, particularly during lock-down. “Tutorials, courses, simplified access, upstream support, documentation, technical and logistical support .... We did everything we could to make it as easy as possible for everyone to manage," explains Sophie Magnanou, director of the Knowledge Lab. She continued, “The key to ESSEC’s strength and success is the coordination among all the departments to provide the best possible support to the community. “
The faculty has also had to adapt to these new habits. “For the ESSEC professors, but also for our lecturers, it was essential to provide a ‘turnkey’ system, very user-friendly, and which lets them teach in the most natural way possible. We had to take into account the various pedagogical needs such as the use of a board, or the possibility of inviting external guests to intervene in a course session."
Finally, there is a significant advantage to this solution: its flexibility. “The system can be readjusted constantly according to the overall health context, or to each individual,” said Bertrand Sulpice, Campus Identity Director and Covid Reference Person. “It allows for flexibility and a smooth transition between the classroom and home, for example, if a person has symptoms or is a close contact case and needs to stay home for several days. “
OCTOBER 2020
France came to a halt again. Following the new lockdown ordered by the French government on October 29th because of the second wave of COVID-19, the Cergy and La Défense campuses had to close yet again. After a two-month respite, it was back to distance learning for all students attending French campuses.
In Morocco and Singapore, students were able to continue attending classes in person, respecting the necessary health measures.
2020: the year of digital education
- Over 25,000 courses offered 100% remotely or in dual teaching since March 2020
- More than 50,000 hours of lectures shared with students via streaming as needed (revision, connection problems, time difference, etc.)
- EUR 2,5 million invested to equip all classrooms on the four campuses for the dual teaching scheme
- More than 100 training and support sessions on digital devices and tools,
- A 15-person strong support team, assisting our community via a single point of contact
- Many tutorials for professors, lecturers and students posted on support sites, updated on a regular basis
A virtual open day
Every year in January, ESSEC hosts an “Open Day” on its Cergy campus. In 2021, due to the pandemic, the teams designed a novel virtual experience. Thanks to an innovative and modern platform, visitors could interact with virtual booths and attend numerous interactive conferences, both in French and in English, to learn more about the infrastructures and programs offered by the school. Nearly 3,000 visitors took part in the event proposed in this innovative format, a figure comparable to physical attendance at the event in its more traditional format. In fact, this new format meant we were not constrained by geographical frontiers, and 35% of visitors signed in from abroad.
FEBRUARY 2021
At the end of January 2021, French President Emmanuel Macron visited the campus of the University of Paris-Saclay to meet with the student community. In response to the deepening despair of the students, and the many consequences of the closure of campuses on their mental health, the President announced a partial reopening of campuses.
So, as of February 8th, students on the Cergy campus were allowed to return to campus for one day a week to attend classes or educational activities. The number of students authorized on campus in person each day was limited to 20% of the total capacity of the site. On our Executive Education campus at La Défense, distance learning remained the norm.
In order to complement its health protocol, since February 8th, the Cergy campus has been offering the ESSEC community the possibility of getting tested directly on campus. Students who are on campus for classes can have a test provided by a well-known French medical biology laboratory. Completely confidential, this test is for preventative purposes.
Fully aware of the importance of mental health and psychological support in these challenging times, particularly for students, the school wanted to play its part in supporting them. Our nurse and two psychologists are fully committed to this. They are doing a remarkable job of listening to students, but also of educating them, to help them recognize signs of distress in their classmates. We have also established a partnership with an organization to support our students abroad.
Meanwhile, on our Morocco and Singapore campuses, students were still able to attend classes in person, scrupulously observing applicable social distancing measures.
Life slowly returned to normal, and we were able to host some events, such as the first “Climate Day” organized on the ESSEC Africa campus on March 19th, 2021.
Almost a year to the day after the first lockdown order in France. A year, indeed, like no other.
After a year of fighting against Covid-19, we would like to thank all our staff members, professors and lecturers at ESSEC Business School, in Cergy, La Défense, Rabat and Singapore, for their unwavering commitment on a daily basis. Their ability to innovate and adapt has been crucial in enabling us to continue to fulfill our mission of training the leaders of tomorrow, despite the unprecedented situation.
We would also like to thank our students in initial training and our Executive Education participants, who have shown such patience and resilience in these challenging times. Their collective commitment is a reflection of the ESSEC spirit that drives us all in building a fairer, more sustainable and more inclusive world.
Lastly, ESSEC Business School would like to offer its support and thanks to all those who, on a daily basis, all over the world, are committed to fighting Covid-19.
Credits:
ESSEC Business School