A thread on concerns in #cdnPSE that #COVID19 threatens to push us to an online-only Fall term. @AlexUsherHESA, for instance, worries that we’ll face disaster without national collaboration for online learning, at the very least for big 1st yr intro courses ... (1/15)

It’s a reasonable worry (even given the tremendous data and policy uncertainties), although I think @ericbkennedy gets at a big problem with the proposed solution: https://twitter.com/ericbkennedy/status/1247528150973558786 ... (2/15)

To my mind, @StellaBastone gets much closer to the worry I have, and I want to frame that concern against a much broader historical view: how European universities transformed after the mid-14th century
https://twitter.com/StellaBastone/status/1247518278953635840 ... (3/15)

Reflecting on the European Great Plague and aftermath, David Herlihy notes a rise in local universities challenging "the dominance of the older great centers". A lesson? Local resiliency. (4/15)

The plague years devastated Europe. The scale is hard to fathom. Estimates suggest between ⅓ to over ½ of the population was lost, but regional variation was terrifying: a few places completely spared, but elsewhere, entire villages and cities lost. (5/15)

Predictably, student numbers dropped dramatically in the mid-14th century. In Herlihy’s account, “in all Europe, the number of universities numbered about 30 before 1348; five of these were wiped out completely.” (6/15)

Some of Herlihy’s most intriguing speculations involve teaching and scholarship. A proliferation of universities “freed the curriculum of the weight of traditional subjects” and diversified the underlying culture of the medieval academy. (7/15)

Today #cdnpse faces intense cross-cutting demands (‘teach relevant skills!’ ‘differentiate!’ ‘internationalize!’ ‘seek efficiencies!’), but I think now more than ever we should focus on the university as an anchor institution for resilient communities. (8/15)

Eventually eschewing latin for vernacular tongues, the universities that emerged after 1350 anchored learning closer to communities of terrified, distrustful survivors, afraid to send their young too far afield. (my reading of Herlihy here, but I think it’s fair). (9/15)

Perhaps Alex is right: this crisis, right now, calls for nat'l #cdnpse collaboration on online learning in particular. But further to the points Eric and Stella raise in the tweets above, I can’t help thinking of the adage that strategists too often fight the last battle. (10/15)

Should we prepare for an online-only AY20-21? Yes, definitely, good to be prepared. Cross-university collaboration? Sure (with Eric’s caveats against ‘MOOC-ification’ stressed repeatedly). But more broadly, ... (11/15)

… I think this crisis today makes clear that we need to imagine universities as vital anchor institutions bound to, and helping to sustain, diverse and resilient communities. That should be the orienting vision of our mission. (12/15)

What does that mean in practice? In addition to buttressing online learning, we also need to think carefully about community engagement and partnerships, and reaching out to local students in creative ways. We make ourselves that vital anchor institution, wherever we are. (13/15)

The temptation is to shunt those local-focused efforts to the side as we worry instead about scaling up online offerings, keeping our international tuition revenue, and demonstrating 'relevance', all with an eye toward trendy performance-based metrics imposed on us ... (14/15)

... I get those realities, how they weigh on us in #cdnpse, now especially. But ignoring our place in our communities, shunting those concerns to the side? That would be fighting the last battle, and ignoring the deeper lessons of history. (15/15)

(and to be utterly clear, this isn’t an academic version of the defensive economic localism and disturbing xenophobic nationalism that we see today, and that pandemics have always inspired throughout history, as fear and ignorance bring out the worst in our natures. ...

... But it is to remember our local communities when we think about the university, because again, too often that seems to be treated as a luxury we can't afford in times of crisis. I think the opposite is true. We're all in this together, and especially with our neighbours.)