Universities after the pandemic

There is a growing discussion of what changes might result from the pandemic: changes in societies, in institutions, and to us as individuals.

What will happen to universities? Will they change for the better or for the worse?

First, I want to acknowledge that there's a lot of heterogeneity, due to the diversity of institutions and their different contexts. The effect of the pandemic on Harvard, on the University of Queensland, and on a small state university in Sri Lanka, could be vastly different.

Any change produces both challenges and opportunities. There are many immediate questions: which universities will survive financially? How many staff will be sacked?  To what extent will universities move to online learning, or to some hybrid? A few years from now will we be back to largely face-to-face teaching?

Although important, we should also ask be asking bigger questions.

An epidemic provides a mirror on society: its values, its strengths, and its weaknesses. This idea is emphasized by Frank Snowden, a historian at Yale University. Last year he published “Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present,” and there is an insightful interview with him in The New Yorker.
David Brooks in the New York Times also picks up on this idea.

Thus, it's worth thinking about how universities respond to the pandemic may tell us something about them. What do you think?

The Chronicle of Higher Education had an interesting series, How will the pandemic change higher education? (in the USA). They asked about a dozen different faculty, administrators, and analysts. It's worth looking at the article as they present a range of perspectives on a range of issues, some pessimistic and some optimistic. One scary suggestion is that the crisis will be used by managers as a pretext for various cost-savings, such as moving to more online learning and an even greater increase of adjunct faculty (i.e. in the USA this means faculty on short-term and part-time contracts and with few benefits). Will the humanities die or experience a resurgence? Will grades be abandoned? Will research become less esoteric? Will students' personal needs be better addressed? Will universities give up on risky expansion plans and expensive fancy buildings?

I would welcome responses to some of these articles.

There are questions about the mechanics of universities such as financial sustainability, modes of teaching, and virtual graduation ceremonies. These are important. However, these mechanics are really means to an end. One can do all the mechanics: recruiting, enrolling students, offering courses, assessment, and graduation, without actually achieving anything. Doing these things does not mean students actually get an education.

 I would like to see more discussion of big questions about what universities are actually for and how can they do those things better, not just in the next few years but also in the longer term. We need to keep coming back to what universities are all about: thinking! Teaching is about students learning how to think and the discipline of learning to think in the manner of certain disciplines. Learning to think like an economist, learning to think like a historian, or learning to think like a physicist or an engineer. Secondly, universities are about research. Again this means thinking, discovering new things, and synthesizing ideas.

What do you think might be significant changes that will occur in the coming years in your own context?