The 21st Century’s Pandemic - One Florida College’s Response and Actions to Finding a Safe Path through the Initial Impact

ABSTRACT

Through no fault of our own, higher education and the world writ large were metaphorically without vision and clarity of sight for the initial few months of the COVID-19 global health crisis as we all tried to stand up protocols, processes, and systems to better identify how our institutions could continue forward safely – supporting both our students and our employees. At Polk State College, and numerous higher education institutions, much of what was prepared for in our pandemic response plans came to be rapidly irrelevant as it was simply too broad and too porous for the specific circumstances of COVID-19. Like the rest of the United States, we found ourselves traversing rapidly changing circumstances and developing real-time strategies to keep our students, faculty, and staff healthy and safe amidst confounding, and at times contradictory, information. Along with our sister institutions, we also found ourselves navigating both a highly charged political environment at federal and state levels, as well as deeply sensitive emotional circumstances among our teams and employees as the health crisis set in, developed across the world, and then, insidiously, wound itself into our institutions and our lives. This article covers the inception of COVID-19, from January 2020 through May 2020.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).