On holistic academic development in a pandemic (in verse)

ABSTRACT

This reflection uses poetry to illustrate how the COVID-19 pandemic uniquely illuminates the holistic nature of academic development. The virus stripped away the pretence that the success of higher education rests on select parts of the whole. We are all precarious and expendable; we are all integral and important. Each one of us, each part of us, every role that we play, together form the threads of this tapestry.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19 pandemic
• holistic academic development
• poetry

Acknowledgments

I thank the anonymous referees for their helpful comments on this manuscript and my colleague, Datuk Emeritus Professor Dr Hj Shad Saleem Faruqi, for reminding me that life is a tapestry of many threads.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stewart Manley

Stewart Manley is a lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.