One of the interesting features of the COVID-19 pandemic from universities’ perspectives is the rate of change of their external environments and how those changes induce uncertainties over time.
The uncertainty is generated by variation in the state of the pandemic across locales. Like most viral epidemics, the severity of its impact occurred in waves or surges. Universities largely moved to remote learning practices in March, when the United States was recording about 30,000 new positive cases per day. The next wave peaked at about 250,000 daily in January 2021. We are now experiencing a set of positive cases from the delta variant which does not yet seem to have peaked, but approaching about 100,000.
As with all new viruses, global scientific understanding of the epidemic had a steep learning curve. The current scientific consensus itself changed many times during the course of the pandemic; it continues to do so. Hence, public health guidance changed dramatically over time, especially concerning masking, surface cleaning, hand washing, and social distancing in indoor vs. outdoor spaces.
Finally, there were obvious political influences on population health practices. In the United States, different states, counties, and cities adopted different mandates over time. How universities experienced the pandemic was heavily influenced by where they were located, their financial health, their private/public status, and their political milieu.
What were the impacts of the unstable public health environment on university decisions? Many institutions made early decisions that were undone as the pandemic shifted and knowledge about the virus evolved. Decisions about practices and protocols sometimes had to be quickly changed. Universities changed modes of instruction; they altered distancing of desks and capacities of classrooms; they evolved use of human checkers at the entrance of each building; they altered COVID-19 testing protocols; they altered residence hall rules; they varied rules affecting laboratory teams.
Universities, unlike businesses, have many stakeholder groups – faculty, staff, administrators, students, parents, alumni, businesses and residents in the nearby area. Pre-Covid-19, university decisions tended to occur after weeks and months of presentations and discussion with different stakeholder groups. Now discussions with stakeholders occur in Zoom meetings hastily called. At some universities these rapid changes produced strains among the faculty, staff, and administrators. Some parents objected to a relaxed stance of a university; others objected to stringent public health limitations. Some students were afraid to return to campus; others thought any restrictions were overly restrictive. The stakeholders were clearly not of one mind.
Two months ago, there was great optimism that we would exit this period of necessarily quick decisions. At this writing, it looks less likely that the pandemic will quietly morph into a feature of life that is less intrusive and more manageable.
Universities do seem to be getting better at achieving more nimble moves in reactions to changes in the pandemic. The strain on stakeholder relations, however, has not disappeared.
A very minor point in response to your excellent blog. You state that “Universities, unlike businesses, have many stakeholder groups.” I don’t know what few stakeholders you think businesses have, but I think many stakeholder theorists would disagree with you. Businesses also have many stakeholder groups: stockholders, bondholders, employees, communities in which they operate, other businesses in their supply chain . . . Besides not much is gained by saying that my stakeholder group is larger than yours!
Excellent and timely post, thank you. At least some scientists would argue that scientific consensus on COVID hasn’t really changed all that much, but that political, social, and economic pressures that complicate acting on that consensus continue to increase.
Best
Paul
Good analysis! We will see. Proud of Georgetown.