Universities in Canada have benefited from increased international student enrolment. The financial benefits of students paying high tuitions are obvious, but we should not underestimate the value of the intellectual, social, and cultural contributions of international students.

As universities consider their plans for operating through this pandemic, they must not lose sight of their core values, nor of their humanity, when making decisions that affect their students, staff, and faculty.

Revenue streams aren't the only things under threat.

While it's important to have a sound financial plan for managing universities through a period of financial stress, it's also important to have a sound people plan that respects our social and moral responsibilities to care for each other. We will need to spend money to do this.

Universities will be judged on how well we take care of their students, their staff, and their faculty. We will be judged on how deeply we embrace our humanity and how we act on it.

No one will give a damn how good we are academically if we fail to care for our people now.

While our governments at all levels are creating programs that will help many of most vulnerable community members, I believe universities will need to bear the greatest responsibility for our international students, most of whom are not eligible for Canadian public assistance.

We'll need to write the cheques.

We should't treat our students are replaceable: On a balance sheet, the tuition fees of one international student are the same as those of any other. But let's also calculate the moral and ethical deficits we'd accrue by ignoring who they are.

The integrity of universities is on the line here. If we choose to speak about things like "global citizenship" and "global leadership" in our mission statements and strategic plans, we need to enact these in our own decisions during this global crisis.