Just as it did in almost every sector of society, the pandemic demanded an immediate response from colleges and universities. Obviously perhaps, the question was how to best serve our students under these conditions. The following four articles provide insight into key issues and the ways in which higher education (and others) responded.
Sara Goldrick-Rab reminds us, “Students are first and foremost humans. Unfortunately, their access to basic needs—housing and food—is not considered when evaluating the real price of college, significantly contributing to the (un)likelihood of a student completing their degree.” Basic-needs insecurity was already a challenge for too many students; the pandemic exacerbated it. The response of government was uneven, so many colleges and nonprofit organizations stepped up try to fill the gap. Goldrick-Rab describes these efforts and their praiseworthy successes. At the same time, these short-term responses need to be followed by “systematic changes to both institutional practice and state and federal policy.”
The other three articles discuss various aspects of a key feature of higher education’s pandemic response, the movement of colleges and universities online. Lev Gonick describes Arizona State University’s rapid and massive pivot to online instruction involving retraining faculty and staff and deploying a variety of technologies (including a health-based mobile app) to support student engagement. The key to doing this successfully, Gonick argues, was a “culture of innovation” in the information technology enterprise that shifted its “configurations and initiatives to foster a more agile organization” to respond to issues like the pandemic “in which the primary operational mode and management of the conditions is paramount.”
Gerardo E. de los Santos and Wynn Rosser focus on the issue of digital access. The “Digital Divide,” they note, had been seen as closing or even overcome by the advances in technology. The pandemic “makes clear significant, preexisting, and continuing challenges of the Digital Divide.” Especially important is lack of access to broadband for marginalized students. They too often have poor or no service and insufficient adaptations like hotspots: “[r]esearch papers cannot be written on a smartphone.” The authors make a number of recommendations for closing these gaps as part of a “long-term response, beginning now in response to the pandemic.”
In a similar vein, Jessica Rowland Williams describes students’ perspectives about the shift to online learning during the pandemic. Based on findings from student focus groups and student and faculty surveys, she reports that “student satisfaction dipped” as “students cited lack of interactivity.” Although faculty members were more positive about the move online, they too see the need to create greater interactivity and engagement. Perhaps most important, improvement in these areas needs to be equity focused, “addressing the unique challenges facing this ‘new majority’” most adversely affected by the pandemic.