Academic Leadership in a Time of Crisis: The Coronavirus and COVID‐19

Abstract

public health crises in recent times. Academic leaders across the United States have responded by moving their educational and associated activities online; as a sense of immediacy swept the nation. The decision to pivot to remote learning was made swiftly, particularly by those institutions operating a shared leadership model, benefi tting from a greater degree of agility, innovation, and collaboration. The current article highlights three of the leadership best practices for navigating unpredictable adaptive challenges such as that posed by the coronavirus pandemic. Firstly, by utilizing a type of servant leadership, that emphasizes empowerment, involvement, and collaboration, academic leaders with emotional intelligence and emotional stability should place the interests of others above their own. Secondly, academic leaders should distribute leadership responsibilities to a network of teams throughout the organization to improve the quality of the decisions made in crisis resolution and thirdly, leaders should communicate clearly and frequently to all stakeholders through a variety of communication channels. Looking forward, the rise of the fl exible "allostatic leader" with the adaptive capacity to learn and evolve in crisis, to emerge better able to address future crises, is described.

Challenges and Opportunities of Preclinical Medical Education: COVID-19 Crisis and Beyond

“…[ 13 ] The effect of current pandemic has an enduring transformation on medical education and will likely to have long-lasting repercussions on student learning. The academic leadership has been placed under tremendous pressure in terms of delivery, access, and assessment of courses; [ 1 – 4 , 11 – 17 ] while simultaneously preserving the principles of integrity, equity and inclusiveness, fairness, ethics, and safety [ 18 ]. The unprecedented use of online pedagogy as an emergency measure during COVID-19 period, with an adaptation to the “new normal” to deliver preclinical medical education, has brought both challenges and opportunities to medical education [ 16 , 19 – 22 ].…”

“…Very short notice transitioning of the teaching community from face-to-face to online teaching with limited and in some cases no prior exposure has been a real challenge for preclinical faculty. This resulted in a struggle to find “a best-suited medium” for teaching anatomy and other basic sciences [ 1 , 2 , 4 , 13 – 17 ]. The current situation also raised concerns regarding unlimited amount of time spent in front of the computer screen, lack of social interaction, and lack of real-life verbal and nonverbal communication which could result in a passive form of learning [ 3 , 14 , 16 , 19 – 22 ].…”

“…Physical (e.g., lack of social interaction and outdoor activity) and psychological wellbeing of both students and staff is of great concern [ 13 – 15 , 24 ]. The preparation of online assessments and training for various online platforms has been a struggle for faculty as well as students [ 1 , 16 , 17 , 24 ]. Furthermore, unproctored online assessments may encourage students towards academic misconduct or dishonesty, i.e., plagiarism and cheating, [ 25 , 26 ] which may “severely affect the knowledge and conduct of future doctors and therefore the quality of healthcare” [ 27 ].…”

Predicting the Impact of COVID-19 on Australian Universities

“…Universities, both in Australia and around the world, have been forced to rapidly change the content and delivery of their offerings to accommodate social distancing requirements and economic shutdowns caused by COVID-19 (Watermeyer et al 2020;Fernandez and Shaw 2020;Francisco et al 2020). The switch to online study and other remote learning programs has been acknowledged as placing extensive strain on both university staff and existing technological infrastructure (Houlden and Veletsianos 2020).…”

Resilient structure of nature‐based extension programs facilitates transition to online delivery and maintains participant satisfaction

“…The rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus in the United States (Roser et al, 2020) necessitated changes in nearly every aspect of public life, including educational programming and public gatherings (Boeren et al, 2020;Fernandez & Shaw, 2020). University as the "early COVID period" (March 16-June 30, 2020), we examined whether differences existed between this period versus our prior year programs in terms of course participants, satisfaction, and outcomes.…”